Identifying China's distinctive academic fields among the top 2% of influential scientists: A bibliometric analysis using Rasch KIDMAP.

Despite trailing the US in global research achievements, China showcased pronounced expertise in specific scientific areas, such as the "Complementary & Alternative Medicine" subfield in 2022, when compared to China other subfields based on the level of academic performance (-3.09 logits). Future research could benefit from incorporating KIDMAP visuals to gauge other countries' strengths in various research sectors, expanding beyond the China-centric focus in this study.