08/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - China is continuing to advance on the international scientific scene. With investment in research of $136 billion in 2006, it has just overtaken Japan $130 billion) and is now in third place worldwide, behind the United States ($330 billion) and the EU ($230 billion). There was a 77% increase in the number of researchers in China between 1995 and 2004: with 926,000 researchers, China is now in second position, just behind the United States (1.3 million. (oj)