STEM Education: China versus USA

International competitors are chipping away at America’s lead in hi-tech by educating legions of their citizens in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The expertise gap threatens not only our economic engine of future products and services but the ability to develop and maintain our advanced defense systems.

The hardest pushing competitor, cited by Arthur Herman and just about every other informed observer, is China, which has arguably overtaken us and whose momentum is daunting, particularly because we appear to be treading water.



Some numerical reference points that compare STEM capabilities of the two nations are:

• Annual STEM Graduates: China graduated approximately 4 million students in 2019, 40% of which had STEM degrees or 1.6 million, while the United States awarded 331,000 degrees out of 1.8 million, or 18%. China is graduating five times the number of STEM students in this strategically vital area as the United States, resulting in this disparity.
• Patents: The World Intellectual Property Organization indicates China has passed us for the first time in 2019 by obtaining 60,000 patents versus our 58,000. It is unlikely that we will retake the lead, given that they have achieved a 200 fold increase since 2000.
• Research Spending: In 2016, China was spending $410 Billion while we were at $511 billion, but their rate of increase was 18% annually versus 4% for the U.S., leading the Wall Street Journal to conclude that we have already surrendered our lead. This scale-up is possible because of their homegrown talent.
• Innovations: China has set a strategic goal of moving from merely manufacturing excellent products to setting standards for designing and delivering at the cutting edge. Their strategic plan Made in China 2025 identifies ten high-tech industries that they seek to dominate, such as electric vehicles (where they are well on the way using entities such as their brand, Volvo), biomedicines, and Artificial Intelligence. As Vladimir Putin has said, “whoever wins the race in Artificial Intelligence will rule the world.” China has heard him.
• Cyberwarfare: China has developed an elite force of hackers – we have our own – and has used them to penetrate governments and strategic businesses worldwide, stealing both state and commercial secrets. Their rapid advances in Drone aircraft have been attributed to successful hacking of U.S. designs.

China is graduating five times more of STEM majors and is energetically deploying them across their economy as well as in national security. To compete in this century means to master the technologies that are the thrusts of the Made in China plan.

It will be virtually impossible to match the annual Chinese scale of 1.6 million STEM graduates, given that we are less than a quarter of their 1.4 billion population. A realistic goal will be to increase the percentage of students majoring in STEM from our current low number of 18% to 40%, matching the Chinese rate. Realizing this goal would result in almost 400,000 additional graduates but perhaps, more importantly, better prepare students to be successful in a much more demanding employment marketplace. Also, they will have higher incomes to pay back their student loans. Obviously, education is key.  READ MORE

INDIA: Increase in COVID Cases

After reporting a significant drop in the number of Covid-19 cases for months, some Indian states have seen a sharp uptick in infections in February. The BBC's Vikas Pandey and Soutik Biswas report.

In early February, physicians in Amravati district, some 700km (435 miles) from India's commercial capital, Mumbai, noticed a sudden surge in the number of people suffering from Covid-19.

Life in this cotton-growing district in the western state of Maharashtra had almost returned to normal after the first wave of infections last summer. The ICUs of the 1,600-bed state-run hospital and half-a-dozen private hospitals were nearly empty.

"But everything changed in February," says Anil Jadhav, a local journalist. "And now there's panic in the district."

Since the beginning of February, Amravati has recorded more than 10,000 cases and over 66 deaths from Covid. More than 1,000 were receiving treatment for the disease this week. The positivity rate is in frightful double digits. Amravati and a few other districts in Maharashtra have been again locked down.

The hotspots in a district of 2.5 million people are mainly congested urban areas, say locals.  SOURCE:  BBC

A Little More About India

India, a former British colony that has been independent for over 70 years, is currently one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. However, in 2019, the country lost its place as the world's fastest-growing economy after it grew more slowly than expected in the first half of the year. For the first time in nearly two years, India's growth rate fell behind China's. It is the world’s third-largest economy in purchasing parity terms.

Overall, in 2019, the economy of India grew at a rate of 5%.3 This growth was primarily due to strong demand for the country's goods and services, in addition to a high level of industrial activity. The country, once a supplier of British tea and cotton, now has a diversified economy with the majority of activity and growth coming from the service industry. India is expected to become a high-middle income country by 2030.

The dominion of India was reborn on January 26, 1950, as a sovereign democratic republic and a union of states. With universal adult franchise, India’s electorate was the world’s largest, but the traditional feudal roots of most of its illiterate populace were deep, just as their religious caste beliefs were to remain far more powerful than more recent exotic ideas, such as secular statehood. Elections were to be held, however, at least every five years, and the major model of government followed by India’s constitution was that of British parliamentary rule, with a lower House of the People (Lok Sabha), in which an elected prime minister and a cabinet sat, and an upper Council of States (Rajya Sabha). 

Nehru led his ruling Congress Party from New Delhi’s Lok Sabha until his death in 1964. The nominal head of India’s republic, however, was a president, who was indirectly elected. India’s first two presidents were Hindu Brahmans, Rajendra Prasad and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the latter a distinguished Sanskrit scholar who had lectured at the University of Oxford. Presidential powers were mostly ceremonial, except for brief periods of “emergency” rule, when the nation’s security was believed to be in great danger and normal constitutional procedures and civil rights were feared to be too cumbersome or threatening.