…and stand out even in a field dominated by nonsense. For example:

It’s true that Chinese universities have made remarkable strides, and some of them host superb centers of research and education. However, they aren’t nearly as dominant as those rankings suggest. To borrow a phrase from Mao Zedong, many Chinese universities are paper tigers: They churn out papers at a ferocious pace, but the quality of these publications is too often in question. American universities will remain the front-runners in the race that truly matters — attracting the most brilliant minds — unless our government continues to withdraw the support needed to produce world-leading research….

China has made success in global university rankings a national policy goal, in the process creating incentives that prioritize the appearance of excellence over the health of the research environment.

For a long time, it was common for Chinese universities to award cash payments for publications as a way to boost the share of papers their researchers placed in international journals; the more prestigious the journal, the higher the payout. According to one analysis, publishing a single paper in Nature or Science fetched more than $43,000 on average in 2016, with one university doling out a $165,000 bonus. Obviously, scholars in America and elsewhere also have incentives to publish, especially as they work to gain tenure. But even modest cash rewards can invite rushed, shoddy or outright fraudulent research, which is why this practice is frowned upon here.

In 2020, the Chinese government issued new guidance that banned monetary rewards for publications and sought to promote quality over quantity. However, the excessive pressure to publish is still present, as are its consequences for academic integrity. A Chinese researcher quoted in a 2024 study argued that an “inhumane” — harsh and unrealistic — demand for research productivity essentially made academic misconduct a necessity. This climate paved the way for paper mills — large-scale operations that sell authorship of fabricated or plagiarized papers — with some so brazen that they hawk their services by reportedly handing out business cards in the hallways of Chinese hospitals.

Retractions are another indicator of systemic issues with research integrity. One assessment found that the rate of published papers later withdrawn for fraud or major flaws is over seven times as high in China as in the United States and that China’s retraction rate is three times the global average.