China overtakes rival USA as the world’s leading high-technology power. Beijing’s technological leadership seeks to consolidate influence on a global level — and not just on planet Earth.
Hong Kong Police Chief Commissioner Lai Kai-ying is, quite literally, on high. About 390 kilometers above Earth, the 43-year-old payload specialist orbits the planet 16 times a day, together with two astronauts from the People’s Republic of China.
The Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace”) manned space station, in orbit for nearly five years, is a unique microgravity laboratory for scientific experiments aimed at deepening understanding of humanity’s future.
Just like in the so-called space race of the 1950s and 1960s, the aerospace industry today is also an ideological competition. Countries that manage to launch rockets into space demonstrate not only technical competence, but also economic strength and the alleged superiority of their systems.
Instead of the Soviet Union of the Cold War era, in the 21st century the United States’ competitor is communist China. In 2032, when the International Space Station (ISS) is decommissioned, China will be the only country to operate a permanently inhabited orbital station.
China dominates cutting-edge research
Space exploration is just one of the many areas in which China holds global technological leadership. This is demonstrated by the most recent Nature classification, whose index, , compiles and evaluates scientific publications.
When comparing countries in 2025, the China was the clear overall winnerahead of the USA, in second place, and Germany, in third. Furthermore, nine of the top ten research institutions were Chinese. Only the prestigious North American university Harvard came in third place. The Max Planck Society, from Germany — a reference institution in basic research, based in Berlin — occupies 13th position.
“Nowadays, it is almost irrelevant which international ranking of scientific institutions you consult. Universities and research institutions in China lead in many areas,” noted Christina Beck, spokeswoman for the Max Planck Society.
The Nature Index shows that Chinese research institutions are undisputed leaders in natural science disciplines such as biology, chemistry and physicsas well as in other applied sciences, falling behind North American institutions only in the areas of health sciences and social sciences.
Substantial investments guarantee success
This rise has occurred steadily over the past two decades, said Richard Heidler, director of Information Management at the German Research Foundation (DFG), Germany’s largest science funding organization.
“In the early 2000s, there was mainly a significant increase in the volume of publications, while, around ten years ago, bibliometric analyzes also started to show an increase in impact indicators, such as the proportion and number of highly cited publications”, explained Heidler. I.e, China not only publishes more, but has also become increasingly influential and visible.
This rise is based on a long-term development process, adds Beck of the Max Planck Society. “The decisive factor was the systematic and continuous financial support for scientific institutions and universities in China, in particular through the international training of researchers and substantial investments in large-scale research infrastructures.”
Leadership in Beijing has long recognized that technology is the key to success. The 15th Five-Year Plan for economic growth until 2030 envisages an “increase in the efficiency of the innovation system”.
China aims to comprehensively strengthen its independent innovation capabilities and promote closer integration between scientific and technological innovations and industry. The resulting impulse for growth is called “new productive forces”.
O new five-year plan identifies eight key themes for the future: artificial intelligence, quantum technology, controllable nuclear fusion energy, life sciences and biotechnology, brain research, serious disease prevention and pharmaceuticals, deep sea and polar research — beyond the so-called deep space.
Ideology dominates scientific cooperation
China and the USA are involved in an intense dispute over a new lunar mission. Beijing aims to be ready by 2030. It remains to be seen whether the US space agency, NASA, will be able to successfully complete its Artemis mission, as planned, by 2028. The delivery of the lunar module and a new generation of space suits is already significantly delayed.
China also intends to establish a permanent colony on the Moon and launch deep space expeditions from there. In the medium term, taikonauts must be permanently installed on the lunar surface.
The Chinese were the only ones to be able to collect a rock sample from the far side of the Moon using a lunar module, a material that will be used to produce construction materials similar to lunar rocks.
Technological advances, however, are just one part of an ambitious global strategy. “Technology can be used as a tool to create cross-border spheres of influence,” wrote Daniel Voelsen of the Berlin-based think tank German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in his most recent study.
“The aim is to export as much as possible thanks to international market dominance and exploit the associated economic scale effects, without giving up a decisive military or economic advantage. For countries like the US and China, this is coupled with the desire to also influence the policies of other nations through technological dominance.” In economic theory, scale effects mean that the more you produce, the lower the cost.
Political limitations
Not even space, in the 21st century, is free from ideology. NASA is prohibited by federal law, through the so-called Wolf Amendment of 2011, from cooperating with the Chinese space agency. The European Space Agency (ESA) also avoids cooperating with China due to the transatlantic alliance, although ESA astronauts have already learned some Chinese vocabulary and carried out joint exercises with Chinese taikonauts. The Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, which also oversees the area of research, defines political guidelines for scientific cooperation projects with China.
“Clear limits are established in sensitive areas”, guarantees the Ministry. “This applies, for example, to collaborations on topics that could also serve military, dual-use purposes, or to collaborations in the area of artificial intelligence that could be abused for surveillance purposes and human rights violations.” China has increasingly become a competitor and a systemic rival. In scientific cooperation, risks and benefits must be weighed.
“We want to maintain cooperation in areas of research where there is no dual-use problem”, summarized Beck, from the Max Planck Society. One example is the so-called FAST telescope, the largest radio telescope in the world, located in Guizhou province in southwest China. It is 500 meters in diameter, approximately the length of five football fields. “This collaboration gives us access to a unique infrastructure.”
Ingrid Krüßmann, from the DFG’s Sino-German Research Promotion Center, defends a similar line. “The DFG is committed to creating the greatest possible legal certainty for researchers in Germany, so that excellent collaboration projects with Chinese partners remain, in principle, viable.”
Cautious cooperation
At the same time, internal political developments in China, the worsening geopolitical situation and, above all, the close connection between civil and military research pose new challenges to German scientific organizations in their collaborations with Chinese partners, Beck continued. According to the researcher, the Max Planck Society intends to shape its cooperation with partners in China in an “informed, responsible and strategic way”.
Meanwhile, China continues to advance its foreign policy agenda using technological means. After Hong Kong astronaut Lai, who generated great excitement in the former British colony, A foreign astronaut will spend, for the first time, six months on the Chinese space station starting in October. Two Pakistanis are already training for the Shenzhou 24 (“Divine Spaceship-24”) mission. The message coming from Earth orbit is clear: the formation of political blocs also happens in the vacuum of space.
