In a recent interview with China Daily, Denis Simon, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and senior lecturer at Duke University, highlighted China's significant progress in science and technology, particularly in battery and solar technologies, high-speed rail, electronic vehicles, artificial intelligence and super computers.

He noted that the number of highly cited first-class scientific authored by Chinese researchers continues to rise.

"All of these taken together point to the fact that China has indeed made the transition from being a laggard to being a lead innovation country," he said.