CHINA IS, FAMOUSLY, the world’s factory and a giant market for the world’s companies. More unremarked is its growing role as the world’s research-and-development laboratory. Between 2012 and 2021 foreign firms increased their collective Chinese research personnel by a fifth, to 716,000. Their annual R&D spending in the country almost doubled, to 338bn yuan ($52bn). Add investments by local firms and China now matches Europe’s R&D tally (see chart). Only America splurges more.

In 2022, despite harsh covid-19 lockdowns, 25 new foreign R&D centres opened in Shanghai. Last year, when overall foreign direct investments in China shrivelled by 80%, those in R&D rose by 4%. In the process, Western R&D centres in China have been re-engineered, from places to learn about the domestic market into hotbeds of innovation whose fruits can be found in products sold everywhere.