Editor’s note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In this issue, we continue publishing a column called “Ode to 70 years” to help you understand the earth-shaking changes that have taken place in New China.

Since In 2018, according to a recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics of China on the country's socioeconomic achievements in the past 70 years since the founding of New China, the number of Chinese R&D personnel totalled 4.19 million, 6.2 times that of 1991. Since it surpassed the United States in the number of R&D personnel in 2013, China has ranked first in the world in this respect for six consecutive years.

The repor t shows that China's R&D expenditure continued to grow rapidly to reach 1,195.7 billion yuan in 2018, 138 times that of 1991. Its R&D spending intensity exceeded two percent for the first time in 2014 and rose to 2.18 percent in 2018, higher than the EU-15 average. At the current exchange rate, China has become the world's second largest R&D investor after the United States.