Panel 1 Technological Advances and Strategic Innovations

More R&D spending

In 2020, China spent RMB2.4 trillion on R&D, ranking second in the world. Its R&D intensity (ratio of R&D to GDP) reached 2.4 percent. A total of 1,345,000 utility patent applications were filed with domestic agencies and 441,000 were granted. In addition, 69,000 international patent applications were submitted through the Patent Cooperation Treaty. China ranked 14th on the Global Innovation Index in 2020 and was the only middle-income economy in the top 30 on this list.

More innovation centers

By the end of 2020, China had established 533 key national labs, 350 national engineering research centers (also known as national engineering labs), 1,636 national enterprise technology centers, 212 mass entrepreneurship and innovation bases, 1,287 national technology enterprise incubators, and 2,251 makerspaces approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The central government is supporting efforts to build Beijing, Shanghai and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into international centers for science and technology innovation, and is developing comprehensive national science centers in Huairou of Beijing, Zhangjiang of Shanghai, the Greater Bay Area, and Hefei of Anhui Province.

Major breakthroughs in basic research and strategic high technology The quantum communication satellite Mozi, the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope satellite Insight, the dark matter probe satellite Wukong, and the Tianwen-1 Mars probe were successfully launched. The moon probe mission landed Chang’e-4 on the far side of the moon – the first probe ever to do so.

China completed its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, inaugurated the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), and developed a broad spectrum of deep-sea exploration equipment such as the underwater glider Haiyi, the deep-sea submersible Qianlong, the research vessel Tansuo, the unmanned submersible Haidou, and the underwater robot Haixing. The manned submersible Fendouzhe completed a test dive to a depth of 10,000 meters. In such fields as C919 airliners, high-speed railways, third-generation nuclear reactors, and renewable energy vehicles, China’s progress attracted worldwide attention.

Science and technology are widely applied in manufacturing. Innovation-driven development has made serious headway. Advances in science and technology have contributed to over 60 percent of economic growth.

China’s infrastructure network is among the largest in the world.

The country has built the most advanced railway and high-speed railway networks in the world. In 2020, it had 146,000 km of railway routes in operation, including 38,000 km of high-speed railways. China has the world’s largest expressway network, with a total length of 161,000 km.

China now has 22,142 quay berths in service, including a world-leading 2,592 berths of 10,000 tonnes or above. It also has the world’s longest navigable inland waterway system, reaching 127,700 km, and the highest inland waterway cargo transport volume. China has the world’s highest liner shipping connectivity index, with eight of the world’s top 10 ports based on cargo throughput, and seven based on container throughput. As a world leader in intelligent ports, China is renowned for the efficiency of its specialized terminals in major costal ports.

China has 241 civil airports nationwide.

The route length of China’s urban rail transit with high and medium passenger capacities is close to 6,700 km. More cities in China are opening metro services than in any other country in the world. The total network length of postal and express delivery service (one way) reached 52.8 million km.

Internet penetration has risen fast. By June 2021, China had put 960,000 5G base stations into service, and 5G terminal connections had surpassed 365 million. Fixed broadband penetration reached 96 percent, mobile broadband use was 108 percent, and the number of internet users topped 1 billion.

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