China's problem with the Nobel prizes in science

An additional argument supporting the thesis that China is not close of replacing the United States as the world's No. 1 power is the fact that the best scientists continue to go to the United States. The 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to malaria researcher Tu Youyou is the only Nobel Prize in science that China has ever won.

Despite the stratospheric investments that the Chinese government has made in science since the 1990s, in the last ten years (2016-2025), China has not received a single one of the 106 prizes awarded in science and economics, while US citizens have won 63.

There are two main explanations for this:

1) China's political system is very authoritarian, which does not encourage "great minds to work in complete freedom and with maximum creativity." This means that the best Chinese minds prefer to go abroad, and few top-tier foreign scientists want to emigrate to China.

2) The Chinese education system, which is based on Confucian values and adulation of the Chinese Communist Party, does not sufficiently reward creative individualism.

Throughout its history, China has won a couple of Nobel Prizes in literature and peace, but only one in science by Chinese citizens based in China.