Abstract: Although China as a transition country has evolved into the world’s second largest in both size of economy and number of academic publications, the nation has yet to gain the world’s leading position in scientific research. Whereas there is abundant literature assessing China’s national research capacity, most studies have focused on quantity of research outputs, often measured by the total number of publications or citations, while relatively less attention has been paid to the disciplinary structure of research outputs, often measured by the distribution of publications or citations across scientific fields. Thus, it is imperative for China to have a holistic and in-depth understanding of its disciplinary profiles (such as areas of relative strength and weakness), as it is key to the nation’s science policy-making, especially to the strategic planning for resource allocation in research. 
The present study follows the tradition in bibliometric studies to trace and analyze the evolutionary patterns of China’s national research capacity in its disciplinary structure.  Particularly, it sheds lights on the major characteristics of China’s national disciplinary structure in research as compared to the world’s major scientific producers, as well as to the global research profiles and investigates whether there is a continuous pattern of convergence or divergence in China’s disciplinary structure towards the global research profiles.  Furthermore, this paper aims to advance the understanding of such evolutionary patterns through a historically oriented approach by taking into consideration social, institutional, economic, and policy changes over the history.  
The dataset used by this study is extracted from the Scopus database covering 4 main areas (physical, life, health, and social sciences) and 27 major disciplines for the period from 1996 to 2015. Percentage distribution of publications across scientific fields is used for comparison of disciplinary structure between nations. The Finger-Kreinin Similarity Index (FKSI) is used as an indicator of the structural similarity between China’s academic publications as compared to the global distribution of publications. The level of specialization for each discipline is measured by the Relative Specialization Index (RSI). Significance of the structural changes over time in China’s disciplinary structures is tested through simple regression models.  
It is found that China differs significantly from the world’s major nations in their research output distributions.  The rankings of China’s disciplinary specializations have been very stable, demonstrating consistency in its peculiarities and preferences. For example, China has constantly been comparatively strong in all major fields of physical sciences but weak in areas of life, health, and social sciences. Analysis of evolutionary patterns shows that there has been a continuous converging process of the disciplinary distribution between China and the world’s research outputs. The regression results reveal that this converging process has led to significant structural changes in China’s research profiles. However, the structural changes have been incremental overall. China has not reached the level of a balanced distribution compatible with other major research powers.  
The author argues that the persistency in China’s disciplinary structure can be largely explained by path dependence processes jointly resulting from national strategies, S&T guiding principles, institutional settings, national culture, and historical events, among other contributing factors. First, following the nation’s development strategies, much of China’s R&D resources (best-trained personnel and ample funding) have historically been channeled into fields related to national security and defense, and a significant portion of research has been devoted to the national survey of natural resources. Second, guiding principles of China’s science policy revealed in a series of national science and technology development plans since the 1950s have had a consistent emphasis on prioritized fields, although recently with a gradual and steady shift towards an overall enhancement in the nation’s sustainable innovative capacity. Third, the imbalance between physical sciences and life sciences has been reinforced by China’s institutional arrangements, i.e. the composition of the members of the Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the disciplinary distribution of government research institutes. Fourth, historical events matter.  Research in life sciences and social sciences was largely damaged through political events, such as the dominance of Lysenkoism on China’s genetics and the discontinuation of sociology programs in universities. In the meantime, physical sciences were strengthened through the so called “Four Emergency Measures” (radio electronics, automation, semiconductors and computers) laid out in the 1956 Twelve-year Science and Technology Plan.  Fifth, values and norms in China’s national culture tend to favor incremental over radical changes. 
This paper suggests that the above path dependency be overcome by effective implementation of science policies that encourage a more balanced distribution of research resources and industrial policies that stimulate the development of economic sectors related to pharmaceuticals and public health, which will in turn push research in life and health sciences.

Key words: research outputs, disciplinary structure, path dependence, scientometric analysis