In a totalitarian society, the government dominates everything for its continued power. China is such a society, and in today’s Martin Center article, Bruce Gilley writes about the ways China has corrupted academic research.

For today’s China under Xi Jinping, academics must be loyal stalwarts of the party who advance its goals by means fair and foul. This represents a return to earlier Maoist understandings that were briefly loosened during the 1980s and 1990s. Xi’s government has issued strict new guidelines that tell China’s academics to toe the line.

For today’s China under Xi Jinping, academics must be loyal stalwarts of the party who advance its goals by means fair and foul. This represents a return to earlier Maoist understandings that were briefly loosened during the 1980s and 1990s. Xi’s government has issued strict new guidelines that tell China’s academics to toe the line.

For example, supposedly scholarly papers on environmental policy issues invariably reflect the interests of the Chinese government rather than any objective research.

Given the pervasive rise of scholars from China in Western academic institutions, these norms have now spilled over into Western academic life. Every academic from China, whether based in the West or in China itself, is under pressure to follow these guidelines because of the costs of non-compliance. And the list of subjects they must fake, avoid, or propagandize just keeps growing.

Given the pervasive rise of scholars from China in Western academic institutions, these norms have now spilled over into Western academic life. Every academic from China, whether based in the West or in China itself, is under pressure to follow these guidelines because of the costs of non-compliance. And the list of subjects they must fake, avoid, or propagandize just keeps growing.

Further, the bad practices of many Chinese academics, such as paper mills and citation cartels, have spilled over into Western academics.

In many social-science and humanities fields, academic departments now insist that only a Chinese person can be hired to teach anything on Asia or China. That opens a major breach in academic integrity with respect to all things China. What’s more, China’s hypercompetitive academic world has created something like academic supermen who are adept at the most performatively over-the-top research articles that read like an academic brain on steroids even if the findings, whether or not they are based on faked data, amount to saying very little and are often retracted.

In many social-science and humanities fields, academic departments now insist that only a Chinese person can be hired to teach anything on Asia or China. That opens a major breach in academic integrity with respect to all things China. What’s more, China’s hypercompetitive academic world has created something like academic supermen who are adept at the most performatively over-the-top research articles that read like an academic brain on steroids even if the findings, whether or not they are based on faked data, amount to saying very little and are often retracted.

It’s a bad situation and getting worse.

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