Vice is blocked at work, so I can't read, but if the title is an accurate description of this article then I'm going to laugh and say, "Fucking, Vice." China is definitely not a bastion of good science, and therefore CANNOT be a superpower. I review papers out of China all the time, and I reject them at an almost 100% rate. The reason is that they conduct science the same way they conduce business, engineering, and food safety. That is, it's a patronage system with no checks and balances run with quotas and bribes. Needless to say the incentives to the Chinese researcher pretty much encourages tweaks, lies and damn lies.
Ya, I'm not surprised by that assessment, I've heard a lot about corruption in Chinese science. The Vice report was just based off of this study, which details the rise in quantitative output of peer-reviewed journal articles from China.
A few points: Firstly, there is good science that originate in China, just like there is bad science form the West. It just so happens that we in the West don't have the same incentives to cheat that they have (for various, complicated reasons). Second, quantity is nothing like quality. There has been a meteoric rise in the sheer number of journals in recent years, especially for-profit journals that will publish just about anything just to get submission fees. These journals have been accused many times of publishing sub-par work, and of pressuring authors to cite other articles from the publisher's other journals as a way to raise their impact factor (a quantitative measure of how often a journal is cited, which is often used as a proxy for the journal's importance). Third, just like drugs crossing the border, many smugglers can be caught, but many more get through the cracks. Something similar may be at play here.
Now they just have to start following that whole human rights thing. I am not entirely aware, but isn't China's educational system incredibly focused on work and no play? Isn't science more about people who are inspired and happy to do their work messing around and making unexpected discoveries? You don't hear about a Bill Gates, or a Steve Jobs, or Stephen Hawking, coming from China. I will believe they are pulling ahead when they start actually doing things. This is expected for a country that is industrializing and moving forward. They are becoming a modern nation, and that includes having science. They also have four times the people, they are obviously going to have more scientists and publish more papers. But I'd imagine the culture and outlook on science, along with the people's ability to invent and innovate is just as important. People don't innovate when they can't say the wrong things about their country without risk of going to jail, and they can't innovate when they are expected to get perfect A's on every last one of their pre-written tests. I may be wrong though, and correct me if I am.