4 China is among the countries with a relatively complete academic system

The number of scientific and technical personnel jumped from less than 50,000 in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China to over 5 million -- the most in the world -- in 2020.

In 2019, China surpassed the United States as the top source of international patent applications filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization, and it stayed ahead with 68,720 applications in 2020.

The country's total expenditures on research and development in 2020 surpassed 2.4 trillion yuan, up 180 times over the 13 billion yuan in 1980.

Spending on basic research in 2020 has nearly doubled that of 2015 and will likely exceed 150 billion yuan in 2020. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), spending on basic research achieved an overall growth rate of 16.9 percent.

The contribution rate of scientific and technological progress is projected to reach 60 percent in 2020, and the proportion of the scientifically literate Chinese population has surpassed 10 percent.

In 2005, China surpassed the US to become the world's largest exporter in high-technology. By the end of 2019, the value of high-technology exports exceeded $700 billion, a figure 4.6 times that of the US, 6.88 times that of Japan and 9.16 times that of the UK.