Slashdot Mirror
China Tops Europe In R&D Intensity
ananyo writes "By pouring cash into science and technology faster than its economy has expanded, China has for the first time overtaken Europe on a key measure of innovation: the share of its economy devoted to research and development. In 2012, China invested 1.98% of its gross domestic product (GDP) into R&D — just edging out the 28 member states of the European Union, which together managed 1.96%, according to the latest estimates of research intensity, to be released this month by the OECD. The figures show that China's research intensity has tripled since 1998, whereas Europe's has barely increased (see graph). The numbers are dominated by business spending, reflecting China's push in the manufacturing and information- and communication-technology industries."
Is it just me or are the given values borderline meaningless. The given values are percent relative to GDP, so they basically indicate the willingness to spend a higher portion of their cash flow for R&D. On an absolute scale this meaningless, a small country could spend 50% of their GDP on R&D and still have less output than a huge nation spending 1%. Then again, raw money value also does not translate to actual scientific progress.
Your point could have been made without the racist implicit assumption that "evil chinese" are trying to poison westerners. They just have lax environmental standards, and the people of China are starting to take notice of how badly it hurts their lives, and the government there is begining to cave, just like the early days before the EPA in the USA.
The rise of the East is good for the world, the more places that have an educated middle class, the less room there is for exploitation. It just happens in a way where exploitation goes way up before it goes down.