For more than a century, the United States has been the dominant global force for innovation. But China and other Asian countries are now testing that dominance, and the West should welcome the challenge.
China's move from imitation to innovation has been a matter of national policy in recent years. In 2011, for example, the government established a set of ambitious targets for the production of patents. Almost immediately, China became the world's top patent filer.
China soon surpassed the U.S. in other important measures. Each year, Chinese universities award more doctoral degrees in science and engineering than U.S. institutions do — and more than twice as many undergraduate degrees in these fields.