China Overtakes US in Scientific Articles, Robots, Supercomputers, by Anatoly Karlin.

By the end of the 1990s, China had come to dominate the mainstays of geopolitical power in the 20th century – coal and steel production. As a consequence, it leapt to the top of the Compositive Index of National Capability, which uses military expenditure, military personnel, energy consumption, iron and steel production, urban population, and total population as a proxy of national power. …

By the end of the 2000s, like Victorian Britain in the mid-19th century, China became the workshop of the world, overtaking the US in both manufacturing and coming very close to it in terms of PPP-adjusted GDP. As a consequence, this was when China also overtook the US on a wide range of consumer welfare and ecological impact indicators, such as exports, CO2 emissions, Internet users, energy consumption, car sales, car production, and number of patents issued. …

But as of this year, China is hurtling past yet another set of inflection points – the hi-tech component of its economy, roughly comparable to any of the major European Powers a mere decade ago, is now about to converge and then hurtle past that of the US by the end of the 2010s …

This process can be proxied by three indicators: Number of scientific articles published, operational stock of industrial robots, and number of supercomputers.

Meanwhile Australia slumbers on with little high tech industry, exporting the cream of its technical talent, decrepit defenses, and an national agenda focused on PC issues like gay marriage, with welfare gradually crowding out everything from a budget that will be in deficit for as far as the eye can see. Postmodern arts graduates rule this country, woefully (unless you have one of the nice elite jobs on taxpayer money).