China overtakes the US in terms of research quality, finds study (physicsworld.com)

Quantity seems like a more reasonable claim. Measuring the 1% of studies with the most citations seems like a misleading indicator of quality.

E.g. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/may/21/research-fin...

citations != quality

A wrong theory can have many citations (as many experimentalists attempt to falsify it).

Moreover, I've noticed academic circle jerks -- Chinese authors citing other Chinese authors (and this pattern increases citations at a rate greater than N^2, where N is larger for China than the US).