I'm not sure the Y axis in either chart gives any truly meaningful implication. The first one gives USD$ millions spent and the second gives just the number of publications. Lets look at the first one. Lots of article state that the efficiency of capital use (ie: how much return you get for putting in $1) in China is much lower than that in the US. Googling even shows that China's capital efficiency, because of the lack of transparency and a command-control government-economy, is even lower than competitive developing countries like Vietnam, India and Thailand. [1] , [2] .

The number of publications, I'm going to have to search to find backing statements but I believe that it is not reflective of true contribution.

[1] https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-outlook-beyond-capit...

[2] http://foreignpolicy.com/2003/07/01/can-india-overtake-china...