South Korean media: The "innovation gap" between China and the United States has significantly narrowed! On May 25th, South Korean media "Global Economy" published an article stating that investigations have shown that China has greatly expanded its R&D investment over the past 20 years and is rapidly narrowing the innovation gap with the United States. Recently, the U.S. market research company Visual Capitalist stated that China's R&D expenditure increased from 41 billion US dollars in 2000 to 723 billion US dollars in 2023, growing approximately 18 times. During the same period, the United States increased from 359 billion US dollars to 784 billion US dollars, with a growth rate relatively slower compared to China. By 2023, the United States remains the country with the largest R&D expenditure in the world, accounting for about 28.5% of global R&D expenditure, but China follows closely behind, accounting for 26.3%. The R&D funding gap between the two countries is only 61 billion US dollars. Compared to the year 2000, this is a significant change, when the United States accounted for 36% of the total, while China only accounted for 4%. China's expansion of R&D investment is part of the national strategy aimed at strengthening technological independence and global competitiveness in strategic industries such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, biotechnology, and renewable energy. In particular, the "Made in China 2025" policy introduced in 2015 became a catalyst to accelerate this process. The goal of this policy is to increase the self-sufficiency rate of technology in ten key industries to 70% by 2025. At the same time, China's R&D expenditure as a proportion of GDP has been steadily increasing. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, China's R&D expenditure reached 3.61 trillion yuan in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 8.3%, equivalent to 2.68% of GDP. This figure is evaluated as approaching the level of developed countries. The expansion of China's R&D investment is changing the landscape of the global innovation race. R&D expenditures of countries other than the United States and China have remained relatively stagnant, followed by Japan (183 billion US dollars), Germany (131 billion US dollars), and South Korea (121 billion US dollars). [Image: //p6-sign.toutiaoimg.com/tos-cn-i-ezhpy3drpa/94729a9175864878abf5126629477f45~tplv-obj:889:500.image?_iz=97245&bid=15&from=post&gid=1833059231312983&lk3s=06827d14&x-expires=1755907200&x-signature=KnqyqoPsaxNfNZ9ItfH2QV3M4R0%3D] (Source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1833059231312983/) Disclaimer: This article solely represents the author's personal views.