@petergleick

Absolutely no surprises here for me. For the last few decades, both Russia and America (and to a lesser extent Western European countries) have worked tirelessly to enrich a few at the cost of the education of future scientists and technological innovators.

In the last 4 to 5 thousand years, the Chinese have invented so many things it isn't funny. The Four Great Inventions (compass, gunpowder, paper-making and printing including movable type) are celebrated but there are hundreds of significant inventions from Triangular-shaped stone ploughshares (circa 3500 BCE) through to the failure of China with the late 16th century decline of China under the Ming then the 17th century conquest by the Manchu Qing dynasty. To be fair, this period saw widespread implementation of the fishing reel, improvements in textile manufacturing, advancements in agricultural irrigation techniques and advanced mass-production techniques for global export of porcelain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

The first 8 decades of the 20th century were not kind to China then after 1978, Deng Xiaoping's reforms started the ball rolling. In 1995 under Deng's successor, the State Council issued the "Decision on Accelerating S&T Development" which described planned Science & Technology development for the coming decades, fifteen years before President Xi came to power.

Xi's encouraged the advancement of the programmes that were already in progress before he took over and now we see the Chinese reaching parity with and surpassing Russia & the West.