Compared to other advanced economies, Beijing invests shockingly little in fundamental S&T or cutting-edge capabilities. This is true in both the civilian and the military domains. According to MOST’s statistics, Beijing spends only about 10% of its R&D funds on basic research. That figure has been largely constant over the past 20 years. Other developed economies spend upwards of 70% of their R&D on basic research in particular fields. Yes, Chinese government statistics must be taken with a grain of salt. But trends and ratios remain telling.
That was from an insightful NPS symposium paper by Emily de La Bruyère and Nathan Picarsic, “Beijing’s Innovation Strategy.” The definitions of S&T and R&D, basic vs. applied vs. experimental are not super clear in the paper. That probably reflects reality, especially in a US/China comparison. But there is this:
Most of the projects that Beijing awards for advanced in basic research would, in the U.S. system, be considered applied. They tend not to focus on developing new theory or capabilities so much as on testing existent theories, refining existing capabilities, and applying them for practical purposes
I’ve argued before that DARPA should, on the margin, take a more applied approach. Perhaps that works best when organizations can piggyback on the basic research of others, and DARPA doesn’t have anyone to piggyback on.
One might plausibly think that excellence in basic research would create competencies which then translate in an applied setting and a scalable product. If that were the case, then basic research should be prioritized.
But in many cases, experimental evidence has preceded a basic scientific understanding (nonlinearity). And in any case, the really “basic” things are already being pursued by geniuses. They will come up with new theories or mathematical tools that can be exploited in an applied way because it is what drives them.
Here’s the paper’s abstract:
The 2018 National Defense Strategy defined a new great power contest. Both the United States and China treat an upper hand in science and technology (S&T) as the determinative variable in today’s contest. But they disagree over what the upper hand entails. Discourse in the United States revolves around pioneering basic research. By contrast, China prioritizes applications. Beijing’s strategic discourse and resource allocations focus on deploying rather than developing cutting-edge capabilities. They focus on doing so at pace, with scope and scale, under State control. This is innovation of application. Beijing’s innovative orientation rests on the ease of acquiring basic research and development (R&D) from the open global system. It is also premised on a new, paradigm for power. Tailored to a world of network-defined interaction, this paradigm is measured by scale and influence, not force and lethality. It de-emphasizes traditional tools and battlefields in favor of controlling networks, standards, and platforms. It plays to China’s enduring strengths of scale, scope, and centralization. Beijing’s approach to innovation will shape how it prioritizes, allocates resources, and measures standing in the unfolding great power contest. Those decisions will in turn shape the U.S.–China strategic dynamic as well as the U.S. military’s operating environment.
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