New Statesman - The spark rises in the east

New Statesman - The spark rises in the east: "More widely, most of the research budget is focused on delivering advances that will increase the productivity of China's industrial and manufacturing base. 'A much smaller proportion of funds is allocated to basic research than in most other countries,'"

If this article is correct, China has added an amount of scientists that equals the US or the EU. There are no Nobel Prizes yet but they will come, even if the share of basic research is lower. China's prosperity is therefore increasing the scientific potential of the world considerably.

If India is going the same way this might mean that this century will see a doubling of the research effort. The Chinese seem fascinated about their space program. Despite their late coming to the scientific revolution.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy discusses differences and similarities between Chinese and Western philosophy. I get the impression that there are no qualitative differences, only gradual. The Chinese are more context dependent partly due to their writing system. This would mean that they think differently since there is a difference in their treatment of language although some aspects of thinking are language independent. It would be interesting if the Chinese, and the Indians on their end, would complement Westerners in science.

Another question is whether there will be collaboration between the continents, or whether they will tighten up. Unfortunately, science have become more "in house" during the last decades.