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Wait. You mean a country that takes education seriously and doesn't kowtow to religious nonsense is better at science than a country where "evolution is just a theory" appears in high school textbooks?
Who could have guessed?
(Before you jump on me, this is not an endorsement of the Chinese government, or even their education system; it's just an acknowledgement of one aspect of the two nations education systems).
China may not have religious nonsense in textbooks post-~~genocide~~ Cultural Revolution, but it does have superstitious nonsense so your distinction isn't really valuable.
The real reason is that China has a huge population 4x that of the US, and like you already mentioned has a strong culture of valuing education because like in most recently (or currently) impoverished nations education is often the best way to improve your conditions. The US doesn't really have this problem, college graduates make more money but the alternative isn't living in abject poverty or even starving; most highschool graduates do just fine.
"It's just an acknowledgement of one aspect of the two nations education systems"
How does one acknowledge a distinction that doesn't exist in reality?
"Surely the reason that FreedomLand is falling behind is the crushing failure and poverty of Bad Country." 
Nope, I pretty clearly said population size and then provided a description of why poor or nouveau-riche countries tend to highly prioritize education unlike the US.
it does have superstitious nonsense
source? do you teach in China, or have such books at hand? i'm genuinely curious. please not some tabloid or the likes.
I mean i've heard they aggrandise their traditional medicine without proof and such but haven't heard it's right in textbooks.
TCM is literally a required part of Chinese medical school.
It's just an acknowledgement of one aspect of the two nations education systems
Wow. Just had to be a dick, didn't you? Well, big man, hope you have a nice day.
"Oh, no someone politely pointed out that I asserted unfounded conjectures as true on a public forum, what a dick!"
"Oh no, someone pointed out I'm a dick in a public forum! I'll mock him because that's that's dicks do!"
Sad dude. Just be less of a dick.
China may not have religious nonsense in textbooks post-genocide Cultural Revolution, but it does have superstitious nonsense so your distinction isn't really valuable.
China has superstitious nonsense in it's textbooks? Such as what?
The United States continues to lead the world in thinking that it leads the world at least. 
Coping westoids on Twitter: "Nooooo we're only citing them to laugh at them!"
Interesting on the domestic increase in citations being a factor there. I wonder what lead to that.
One factor might be that persecution of Chinese-Americans has led to many prominent scientists returning from the US to China in recent years. Their new output would contain and be domestic citations.