Modern era
Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, China has made significant investments in scientific research,[340] with $163 billion spent on scientific research and development in 2012.[341] Science and technology are seen as vital for achieving China's economic and political goals, and are held as a source of national pride to a degree sometimes described as "techno-nationalism".[342] Nonetheless, China's investment in basic and applied scientific research remains behind that of leading technological powers such as the United States and Japan.[340][343] Chinese-born scientists have won the Nobel Prize in Physics four times, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine once respectively, though most of these scientists conducted their Nobel-winning research in western nations.[r]
The launch of a Chinese Long March 3B rocket
China is rapidly developing its education system with an emphasis on science, mathematics and engineering; in 2009, it produced over 10,000 Ph.D. engineering graduates, and as many as 500,000 BSc graduates, more than any other country.[349] China is also the world's second-largest publisher of scientific papers, producing 121,500 in 2010 alone, including 5,200 in leading international scientific journals.[350] Chinese technology companies such as Huawei and Lenovo have become world leaders in telecommunications and personal computing,[351][352][353] and Chinese supercomputers are consistently ranked among the world's most powerful.[354][355] China is furthermore experiencing a significant growth in the use of industrial robots; from 2008 to 2011, the installation of multi-role robots in Chinese factories rose by 136 percent.[356]
The Chinese space program is one of the world's most active, and is a major source of national pride.[357][358] In 1970, China launched its first satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, becoming the fifth country to do so independently.[359] In 2003, China became the third country to independently send humans into space, with Yang Liwei's spaceflight aboard Shenzhou 5; as of 2015, ten Chinese nationals have journeyed into space, including two women. In 2011, China's first space station module, Tiangong-1, was launched, marking the first step in a project to assemble a large manned station by the early 2020s.[360] In 2013, China successfully landed the Chang'e 3 probe and Yutu rover onto the Moon; China plans to collect lunar soil samples by 2017.[
