President calls for global collaboration in basic research

China’s top leader has called for efforts to deepen international collaboration in basic science following a major funding boost that signals the government's strategic priorities for the next phase of its innovation drive.

International exchanges and cooperation in basic research will be strengthened in order to jointly tackle major scientific issues such as climate change, energy and environment, and life and health, and China will play a more active role in global science and technology governance, Chinese President Xi Jinping told a symposium in Shanghai on 30 April.

The event, understood to be the first top-level symposium dedicated specifically to basic research, chaired by Xi himself, brought together key actors across government, academia and industry, including the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science and Technology, and top university presidents.

The renewed emphasis on basic research comes as China seeks to strengthen what officials describe as “original innovation”, a reference to breakthrough discoveries and pioneering technological advances.

“Global technological competition is increasingly focused on fundamental and frontier fields, highlighting the growing importance of original and disruptive innovation,” Xi told the gathering.

While China’s scientific output in international journals remains strong, a recent study by US think tank Quincy Institute has found that the country now records one of the lowest shares of internationally co-authored papers among major research economies, with collaboration rates declining steadily since around 2018.

In particular, co-authorships with the United States have dropped by some 20%, especially in areas considered sensitive such as engineering and artificial intelligence.

Geopolitical tension clouds prospects

Commenting on these trends, Denis Simon, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, noted that China’s scientific internationalisation is increasingly characterised by what constitutes “safe zones” of collaboration.

“It reflects selective openness under conditions of intense strategic competition,” he said. “China recognises that frontier science remains deeply internationalised, and that many domains (climate, health, fundamental physics) require global collaboration.”

But geopolitical tensions are likely to cloud the prospects for meaningful expansion of exchanges, according to Simon, who noted that the latter is increasingly constrained by tighter controls such as visa restrictions, funding scrutiny, and security concerns.

In this context, China’s new K-visa scheme – announced in October 2025 as part of efforts to attract international science and technology talent – remains conspicuously absent from application portals more than six months after its official launch, raising questions about the policy’s readiness and implementation hurdles amid mounting domestic concerns.

The new directives also come as China continues to strengthen technological self-reliance in key sectors in recent months. In semiconductor manufacturing, for example, Chinese firms have accelerated the localisation of chipmaking tools and materials, while domestic chips have seen surging demand in response to US export restrictions.

Discoveries and breakthroughs lacking

But analysts note that significant structural gaps remain, as Beijing shifts its innovation model from “playing catch-up” to original discovery.

“It reflects a new structural reality: applied innovation can no longer compensate for gaps in foundational science,” said Simon. “Bottlenecks facing China (eg, semiconductors, AI theory, quantum science) are rooted in basic research deficits.”

This concern is echoed by Chinese science policy voices. “Original major scientific discoveries and theoretical breakthroughs are lacking,” wrote Sun Fuquan, an advisor to the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and former director of the MOST-administered China Academy of Science and Technology for Development, in a recent commentary.

“In the international cutting-edge scientific and technological competition fields such as quantum information, synthetic biology, brain science and brain-inspired intelligence, many core theories, underlying algorithms and key tools still rely on foreign countries, and the ability to achieve original innovation ‘from 0 to 1’ is insufficient,” he wrote.

To address some of these challenges, Xi called for a more “strategically coordinated” approach in basic science, including strengthening top-level design, clearer priority setting, and further integration between universities, research institutes and enterprises – with key innovation efforts to be industry-led, he noted.

While universities remain a main source of major scientific and technological breakthroughs, Beijing is increasingly encouraging enterprises to play a leading role in frontier science.

Policymakers are seeking to bridge longstanding gaps between laboratory research and commercial application, particularly in strategically important technologies.

The shift also reflects a broader belief that enterprises are perceived as better positioned than universities alone to translate basic research into scalable innovation.

The new proposed measures also highlight support for young researchers, including fostering a culture more tolerant of failure, with evaluation systems better suited to the "long-term nature and uncertainties” of basic science.

Funding increased

In March, the central government announced a major science funding boost, allocating CNY426 billion (US$62 billion) in funding for science and technology development in 2026 – a roughly 10% increase on the previous year – while funding for basic research will receive a particularly strong 16.3% increase.

The increase came at a critical juncture at the start of the Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), as Beijing set priorities for the next phase of national development. In 2025, China’s basic research expenditure exceeded 7% of total R&D spending for the first time. While this marks a historic high, analysts note that the share still remains well below that of other major scientific powers.

For example, while China is among the world’s largest spenders on R&D, data from the OECD and the US National Science Foundation show that its basic research intensity remains well below that of countries such as the United States, Japan, and Germany.