The Chinese publication trends over the decade gone by

In the early 19th?century, Napoleon Bonaparte, oft reckoned as the first modern European, made a prophetic observation that China is a sleeping giant, let her sleep lest she rocks the world. China is certainly an ancient nation, one of the cradles of civilization with a written history beginning from 1250 BC, from the time of the Shang Dynasty. This geographical region, fairly insulated from the advancements happening in West Asia and Europe, had made great advances in art, literature, philosophy, and technology during the turbulent years of various dynasties.

In the 90’s, capitalizing on the huge and young human resources, China emerged as the hub of global outsourcing activities. Over the years she rightfully earned the sobriquet of being the manufacturer of the world. Technology and investment flowed in from abroad and China offered the theatre of action and the workforce, which was very enticing. By the turn of the present century, China was ready to take on the world as the hotbed of innovation. There was no looking back after that and from a trailing economy of the early eighties today China has exploded to a booming 16 trillion-dollar economy second only to the US economy worth around 19 trillion dollars.

Chinese innovations and industrial goods have slowly and solidly felt their way into daily life as various products and components. Today China is way ahead of the rest of the world by the sheer quantity of innovations. Here we try to trace the pattern of advancement of the Chinese bandwagon on the techno-economic highway. This would be interesting as China came to the fore within a short span of time competing with the traditional industrial economies. The successful Chinese policy of opening up to foreign investors has fuelled innovation and patent filings. The US corporate giants like Ford, General Motors, and General Electric, and Japanese and South Korean?global corporates among many others, are major non-domestic patent filers in China as a result of the US direct investments in the region.?The foreign direct investment policy had played a constructive role in laying a stout industrial foundation in the traditional agrarian economy.

(Relecura platform happens to be the AI-powered platform for carrying out specialized high-end analytics to squeeze out meaningful information based on patent data, which would help other nations and players optimize their resource management to gain a competitive edge.)

Fig 1: Chinese Publications during 2012-2021 ?

?Fig 2: Major Chinese patent publishers in 2012

In 2012, when China was becoming conspicuous as an epicenter of technological efflorescence, it had produced 1779701 patents. The real upward surge began in early 2014 and by 2021 the patent output had reached a whopping?4862358. During the year 2018-19, the upward trend seemed to plateau and flatten out but by 2019-20 again the surge picked up and the momentum is still maintained, out distancing the combined output of many of the major geographies known for technological excellence. Over the study period China could successfully maintain the upward trend, though it had slacked here and there. (See the temporal trend given above)

Table 1: The decadal publishing pattern in China

The covid-19 pandemic, which struck the world in late 2019, did not dampen the momentum of Chinese publications. In fact, the output increased conspicuously during the pandemic. They have managed to maintain the tempo of innovation and development when other economies struggled to cushion out the jolts.

Table 2: Major publishing organizations in China in 2012

The State Grid Corporation of China tops the list of Chinese entities that dominate the innovation domain, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences is not far behind. The Chinese corporate giant Huawei and other major Chinese corporates are very much in the race. Zhejiang University, a prestigious academic institution, is also noted for its strong presence in the show. It is interesting that the state-funded research institutions and establishments are contributing substantially to the pursuit.

In 2012, as stated above, there were 1,779,701 publications, and digital data processing claimed as many as 46, 319 of them. It was followed by medicinal preparations, electric elements, data transmission, the therapeutic activity of chemicals, testing materials, etc. (Do take a look at the table below.) A major share of the claims was from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Obviously, the country could ride the crest of emerging technologies.

Table 3: Comparison of Top Technologies

?Whereas by 2021, the Total publications had multiplied to???4,862,358, and the top technologies are digital data processing, chemical or physical process separation, testing materials, etc. down to wastewater treatment. (See the tables above)

Table 4: Comparison of top patent holders

?The Chinese Academy of Sciences regained its upper hand, though the?STATE GRID CORPORATION OF CHINA (SGCC) had overtaken it in the previous years. And new players entered the field with significant contributions, such as Gree Electric, Sinopec, Oppo, Tencent, Midea Group, etc. . It is interesting that over the past decade, except for Samsung, most of the multinational giants have faded from the picture and Chinese companies are holding the ground. In 2012 Sony, Samsung, LG and Panasonic were significant players in the publication field. ?

Conclusion

The theatre of action is shifting to the Far East complimenting the western world, as the emerging publication patterns indicate. Japan, in the late 19th?century, had become a centre of industrial explosion. Even after the world War, Japan could retain her position as a centre of great innovations. ?South Korea also has made tremendous progress in the recent decades. In the early decades of the 21st?century, China has obviously emerged as the major player in the Far East, along with Japan and South Korea. It will be another decade before the dust settles and a new normal falls into place. ?Anway, the Far East has emerged as an important region of industrial and technological growth, like western Europe and North America, imparting more momentum to the progress of humanity.

?Acknowledgement: Thank you Dr. Ginish George for the extraction the relevant data from Relecura IP analytics platform and tabulating the same