health care system is weak, with shortages of doctors and nurses and six times fewer intensive care unit beds per capita than in the United States. An official like Li Zaiyong might be more interested in building a gleaming hospital filled with sophisticated equipment. Their attention drifts, however, when it comes to installing the trained

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Although China achieved critical mass (#3), it failed to ignite. It never created phase separation (#1) and dynamic equilibrium (#2). Political battles, and the emperor’s own prejudices, would regularly override the conclusions of the early “scientists.” Seven years after Shen began work on a new astronomical system, for example, the emperor

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