What Is China Doing in Science?

A Dispatch from the AI+ Science Summit

Last week, in the luminous halls of the Waldorf Astoria, Washington’s AI+ Science Summit convened a panel raising precisely the question that keeps policymakers, academics, and industry leaders awake: What is China actually doing in science, and what does it mean for the global order?

Guiding us through this topic were four experts of rare calibration:

Michael Kuiken, Commissioner, U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission
Kendra Schaefer, Director of Tech Policy Research, Trivium China
David Lin, Senior Director for Future Technology, SCSP
Libby Lange, Director of Intelligence, SCSP

Below, a synthesis of their discussion, which unfolded less as a tableau of alarm than as a masterclass in strategic nuance.

Science and Strategy: The View from Thirty Thousand Feet

Michael Kuiken began by invoking the longue durée ever the attentive observer, China has parsed the strategic lessons of U.S. science policy since 1945. The ensuing architecture, the American approach of robust, continuous research investment as the substrate for national power—now faces a formidable echo. Today, China channels vast resources toward its own ecosystem of innovation, intent on not merely following but redefining the arc of technological ascendancy.

Basic Research or Catching Up at the Foundations

David Lin brought clarity to an oft-misunderstood point: basic research understanding phenomena for their own sake, rather than immediate utility remains China’s acknowledged Achilles’ heel. Yet it is precisely here that Xi Jinping’s leadership is focusing attention, and, crucially, capital. China’s perennial tension between centralized control and the unpredictable spark of innovation constitutes both its greatest vulnerability and perhaps its most interesting experiment.

Lin observed that while party oversight can stifle, Beijing’s organizational prowess and willingness to modernize infrastructure at scale building state-of-the-art laboratories and research facilities create a fertile landscape for discovery. The scale is unmistakable; the intent, unmistakably bold.

Artificial Intelligence: The State’s Co-Conspirator

On the subject of AI, Kendra Schaefer peeled back the regulatory curtain to reveal a landscape both tightly ordered and surprisingly transparent. China’s requirement that publicly accessible AI tools be registered constructs, in effect, a living index of national capability an analytic gift for anyone inclined to study the details.

More substantively, China’s state-backed labs are deeply engaged in AI-driven scientific discovery from geosciences to advanced materials and semiconductor design. This is science not as pure inquiry, but as statecraft a subtle but deliberate reframing.

Data The Modern Asset Class

Perhaps no area better illustrates China’s systematic approach than data. Standardization and centralization have enabled China to fashion some of the most accessible, unified data sets in the world, particularly in health. Schaefer and Kuiken noted that these policies transform data from bureaucratic detritus into a national asset one now even reflected on local government balance sheets.

Yet, predictably, the state’s anxiety about information security still creates friction especially in sectors like mapping and autonomous vehicles, where access is meticulously guarded and foreign participation tightly circumscribed.

Contrasts and Contradictions

Across the discussion, a pair of opposing philosophies emerged. The Chinese approach: build infrastructure in anticipation of demand, a calculated bet that capacity will summon its own necessity. The U.S., by contrast, remains more reactive, investing when demand is manifest though often encumbered by the weight of legacy systems and decades-old facilities.

Kuiken observed the risk inherent in the American approach: with China’s new laboratories and world-class infrastructure coming online, the gravitational pull for scientists and scientific advances grows stronger an eventuality worth more than cursory concern.

Talent Rewiring the Pipeline

Libby Lange punctured a persistent myth: China’s central objective is not simply luring global talent, but more so unlocking the latent potential of its own. The reform agenda seeks to reduce institutional inertia, reward substantive achievement (not mere publication volume), and bridge the divide between research and commercialization. An equally notable trend is the monetization (or ‘revivification’) of dormant intellectual property dusting off patents, improving incentives, and capitalizing on a vast native talent pool.

China’s approach to attracting foreign scientists is, by comparison, less innovative, often weighted to financial inducements. As Schaefer noted, access to extraordinary infrastructure is tempting, but so too are the intangible freedoms that have historically animated Western science.

Vocational talent, too, plays an underestimated role. From quantum technicians to shipyard welders, China is investing at all levels of the talent continuum something the U.S., with its habitual focus on elite science, has too often neglected.

The Panelists’ Concerns

Asked what most threatens American scientific leadership, the panelists voiced a concert of unease
Scaling and Manufacturing The archetype of American discovery commercialized at Chinese scale remains a worry.
Quantum, Biotechnology, Fusion In each, China pursues state-directed, industrial-scale progress, while the U.S. lags in coordinated investment.
Data Utilization China’s ambition here is structural and actionable; the U.S.’s approach, by contrast, too often remains aspirational.

A Summons, Not a Lament

The session concluded with a clear, if tacit, challenge The competition between China and the U.S. is not solely over invention, but over the ecosystem the infrastructure, data, talent, and policies that allows discovery to thrive and scale. China’s model is imperfect, sometimes heavy-handed, but accelerating. If the U.S. is to sustain its preeminence, the remedy is not to mimic, but to renew to modernize, invest, and recalibrate with both humility and ambition.

In this moment, science is national strategy, and national strategy, in turn, must become the business of science. The question for the U.S. is whether it can rediscover its appetite for foresight, its tolerance for patience, and its readiness, once more, to lead.