TOKYO -- Despite being at odds on the diplomatic front over how to deal with North Korea, trade and other matters, the U.S. and China are strengthening their ties in a significant area: scientific research.

A recent survey by Japan's National Institute of Science and Technology Policy, or NISTEP, finds that the two biggest economies also lead the world in the number of globally influential research papers. Although Japan ranks third in terms of the amount of money it spends on basic research and the number of researchers, it is lags far behind in internationally recognized research.

The survey by the education ministry-backed institute also finds Japan behind European countries, including Britain and Germany.

The survey is composed of two reports, Japanese Science and Technology Indicators 2017 and Benchmarking Scientific Research 2017, which gathered data on research trends through 2015 in a number of countries.

It compares the average number of high-quality papers published in each country for 2013 to 2015 in eight major scientific disciplines, including chemistry and physics. Studies in the top 10% in terms of frequency of citation by other researchers are deemed high quality.

According to the survey, the U.S. topped the list in four areas, including physics, with 43% share of the top 10% of cited papers. In clinical medicine, the U.S. had a 49.3% share.

China ranked at the top in four areas, including chemistry, with 33% share, and engineering, with a 29.2% share.

A separate analysis highlights the closer ties between the U.S. and China in scientific research. According to a survey on which country the U.S. partnered with the most on joint research papers between 2013 and 2015, China was first in six of the eight major disciplines. Germany had the largest number of co-authored studies in physics. The U.K. was its most frequent partner in clinical medicine.

(Nikkei)