"China is always ahead when it comes to technology and innovation," Gemma Hersh, senior vice-president of Elsevier, an Amsterdam-based academic publishing company, said in a recent interview with China Daily.

She recalled an experience from around 15 years ago during her first visit to China, when a shopkeeper told her that card payments were commonly used. "At that time, nowhere else in the world was as far advanced with digital and technology for payments as China was," she said.

She said that over the past 5 to 10 years, China has seen a remarkable improvement in research quality, which is "a huge achievement". She attributes this progress to sustained investment in R&D, innovation, and AI, alongside international collaboration.

Zhang Haoyu and Huang Lingyi contributed to this story.