> - they are more careful to publish something that they are not (yet?) 100% sure about

Indeed, if I am not mistaken the paper was put out on pre-print on 22nd July?

If anything the surprising thing is the warp speed of replication from the Chinese Institutes. Very exciting to see.

To add to your list of possible reasons:

- There are way more STEM graduates in China by a wide margin

- 18/20 of top universities in the world for chemistry research is in China according to Nature, including one of the attempts by USTC (#2 ranking): https://www.nature.com/nature-index/institution-outputs/gene...

- Supply chain is faster in China for chemicals and resources

- China has more money/equipment for this sort of stuff

Yes, good points though the money angle is debatable.

The USA and Europe are 'on average' also more pro-science than the rest of the world, but I think the East has the edge in education and comes across as more focused on progress. Probably this is underpinned in part because they have a ton of very hard problems that need solving and in the 'rich West' people are much less driven because their lives and the lives of their families are on average already quite plushy.

It makes you wonder what could happen in Africa and Latin America once they embrace education and science.

One difference I’ve found living in the West and China is that being academically successful often gets you made fun of in the US but adored in China.

There’s quite a lot of anti-intellectualism in the US. Therefore, there’s an equal amount of anti-science.

Meanwhile, every Chinese I’ve ever met is pro-education and thinks highly of science.

You should see the look on my parents' HK church friends whenever I unintentionally start talking about science, it's like I said a swear word.

I can see some problems with the setting, not necessarily the country.

That actually proves one of my points.

I didn’t want to get into it too much but I wrote that Chinese people are on average, more pro-science because they’re less religious or that their religion does not strongly contradict with science.

I’m guessing your parents’ HK church friends are Christians?

Yeah I'm not disagreeing with you at all, it's the Christianity and Hong Kong's post-colonial legacy.

The mainland Chinese social order is secular. The technocratic state, the CCP, had a lot to do with that. I would actually argue that technocracy is a superficial form of scientific culture.

I call that the cult of stupidity. It is unfortunately very common where I live.