This week we have a worldwide cover on the rise and rise of Chinese science.

The West has been slow to grasp that China is now producing some of the world’s best research and innovation. In 2003 America produced 20 times more high-impact scientific papers than China. By 2022 China had overtaken both America and the European Union. When the Nature Index of contributions to articles in prestigious journals was launched in 2014, China’s score was less than a third of America’s. By 2023 it was top. According to the Leiden Ranking of the volume of scientific research output, the world’s ten top universities include six in China.