Nature reports China has "overtaken the United States as the number one ranked country or territory for contributions to research articles published in the Nature Index group of high-quality natural-science journals", remaining at second place overall.[365]
One thing that China (and S. Korea) does is to pay researchers for completing peer reviews, so they have a more rigorous and prestigious peer review process. The US doesn't pay researchers for completing peer review, so it's seem as drudgery and a burden on academics. Obviously, one model is more conductive to achieving rigorous and high quality papers.
(Idk how the paid peer review process would impact Nature, since it's an English-language publisher.)