China's rise heralds era of multipolar innovation

The Global Innovation Index 2019, released by the World Intellectual Property Organization in July, shows China's innovation index of 54.82 is ranked 14th in the world. The GII provides detailed metrics on the performance of 129 countries and regions in innovation based on 80 indicators.

China broke into the list of top 20 most-innovative economies only last year, and the latest GII shows it has already overtaken some developed countries such as Japan, France and Canada in terms of innovation. Plus, China is also the only middle-income economy in the top-30 list. This shows China's innovation capability has remarkably improved in recent years.

As a barometer of innovation, the GII aims to measure the innovation performance of an economy, including its input and output in the innovation sector, and efficiency ratio. In the global innovation output indicator ranking, China has climbed to the fifth spot, outperforming some traditional innovative countries such as the United States, Finland, Israel and Germany.