We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself - The New York Times

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/opinion/universities-science-trump-china.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kk8.cBxn.9hYs8iPlZC2u&smid=url-share

In 1958, by a bipartisan vote, Congress passed and President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act, one of the most consequential federal interventions in education in the nation’s history. Together with the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, it made America into the world’s undisputed leader in science and technology.

Nearly 70 years later, that leadership is in peril. According to the latest annual Nature Index, which tracks research institutions by their contributions to leading science journals, the single remaining U.S. institution among the top 10 is Harvard, in second place, far behind the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The others are:

The University of Science and Technology of China

Zhejiang University

Peking University

The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Tsinghua University

Nanjing University

Germany’s Max Planck Society

Shanghai Jiao Tong University

A decade ago, C.A.S. was the only Chinese institution to figure in the top 10. Now eight of the 10 leaders are in China. If this does not constitute a Sputnik moment, it is hard to imagine what would.

But if America’s response to Sputnik reflected a nation united in its commitment to science and determined to invest in the country’s intellectual potential, we see in our response to China today a bitterly divided, disoriented America. We are currently governed by a leader indifferent to scientific consensus if it contradicts his political or economic interests, hostile to immigrants and intent on crippling the research universities that embody our collective hope for the future. The menace now is within. And with very few exceptions, the leaders of American universities have done little more than duck and cover.