National modernisation and global science in China

The paper reviews the rapid growth and improvement of science in China since Deng Xiaoping's reforms in the 1980s and especially in the last two decades, situating the achievement and its limitations in the contexts of both the global science system, and national policy and strategy. The key is the effective combination of national science with global science. Science in China has worked to global norms while remaining nested in national government and Sinic governance, in which Confucianism and Legalism are combined with Leninism. The paper reflects on trends in investment in R&D, the number of published papers, discipline balance, national and global networking, and policies on cross-border partnerships and mobility. China has established a strong autonomous position at world level in science that is partly separated from the intensively networked Euro-American systems but has benefitted especially from a mutually productive relationship with the United States. However, that relationship is now in question.