In the event, the European neutrino community decided overwhelmingly to join and support JUNO. "There has been an evolution and a differentiation of physics priorities in each geographic area of the planet, dictated by the large sizes and budgets of next-generation experiments," Ranucci said.

Marcos Dracos, a high-energy physicist at the University of Strasbourg in France, who is chair of the JUNO Institutional Board, said the Daya Bay experiments proved China's research strength, and that has changed the opinions of many European scientists.

"With the Daya Bay discovery, China has proved that it is able to make significant discoveries in fundamental physics on its own soil. In the same way, Chinese particle physicists have also proved that they are able to propose, build and operate large international collaborations. They showed the whole world that they can be trusted, and that they are supported by their country in this field of research," he said.

In parallel with JUNO, Chinese physicists are also proposing a next-generation collider, and if everything goes as planned, the construction of the Circular Electron Positron Collider will start after 2020, followed by the Super Proton-Proton Collider in 2040 - a full upgrade of CERN's Large Hadron Collider that will require far greater investment than neutrino observatories.

"The construction of JUNO is expected to be completed by 2020. If the CEPC and SPPC projects are approved, I hope they will alternate with each other to help China take a leading role in global high-energy physics research," said Wang from the physics institute in Beijing.