The Jist: News from China
The Jist provides readers with the gist of recent news stories related to scholarly publishing. Paid subscribers to Journalology also receive a weekly in-depth analysis of publishing industry developments.
Hello fellow journalologists,
China is both an opportunity and a threat for western academic publishers. In this issue of The Jist I’ve pulled together excerpts from recent news stories about academic publishing in China and also the wider Chinese research ecosystem. Publishing professionals, and academia more broadly, need to keep abreast of what’s happening in this important market, I’d argue.
None of the text that follows is mine; I’ve deliberately selected snippets that collectively tell a story and hopefully give readers a sense of the major trends. Most of the articles are from the past few weeks, but some are a little older.
We’ll start off with three stories that are directly relevant to publishers before moving on to news and opinion pieces that describe the current (and future) research landscape in China.
China releases global high-quality journal list for medicine, life sciences
A total of 4,027 medical journals and 3,064 life sciences journals were chosen to feature on the list. This list is intended to serve as a reference for researchers in selecting journals for submission, for academic institutions in research assessment, and for research management authorities in optimizing journal tiering systems. The list was iteratively generated based on global citation big data from 2023 to 2025, starting with a set of authoritative seed journals. The journals are categorized into four tiers, forming a pyramidal structure: Tier A represents top-tier journals, Tiers B and C constitute the academic core, while Tier D encompasses emerging and specialized fields.
What’s driving the rise of Chinese journals?
George Cooper, a lecturer in publishing practice at University College London in the UK, says another reason why China is investing in publishing is because of changes to the way it assesses research, moving away from volume-centric measures and stipulating that at least a third of all publications must be published in a domestic Chinese outlet. “You see a top-down policy shift from incentivising publishing in high-impact factor outlets, which are typically English language and overseas—which has been driving a lot of content to Western publishers, much to their benefit—to prioritising China’s own domestic research infrastructure,” he says.
Major Chinese funder to stop paying fees for 30 pricey open-access journals
In a challenge to open-access publishers, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the world’s largest research institution, has told its researchers it plans to stop paying to publish their papers in dozens of international free-to-read journals it regards as too expensive. High-profile, high-fee journals affected include Nature Communications, Cell Reports, and Science Advances.
How Chinese labs race for the next ‘first-in-class’ breakthrough
China’s leading scientists and research laboratories are racing to deliver the country’s next breakthroughs in chemistry and other fields, fueled by record investment in research and development as well as an aggressive push for scientific self-reliance. From battery materials to biomedicine development, China is focusing on advancements in chemistry that often lead to industrial applications and major commercial gains.
China intensifies push to become world leader in tech and AI
China is pledging to use ‘extraordinary measures’ to support the country’s bid to become a global leader in artificial intelligence, quantum technology and other cutting-edge technological fields, according to its 15th five-year plan. The plan was passed by the top legislature in Beijing on Thursday and published on Friday. It will run from 2026 to 2030 and serves as China’s overarching blueprint.
The real story behind China’s technology triumph
Many of China’s poorest provinces have better infrastructure than the United States’ wealthiest regions. China’s policies designed to stimulate manufacturing growth have led to price wars, waste and debt crises. It is true that China’s one-child policy and zero-COVID strategy caused unnecessary suffering. It is also true that US regulatory policies are hindering the provision of public services such as railways in the United States. Just for including these facts, I would call Wang’s book one of the best English-language texts on China published in the past few years.
Research security policy needs clear guidelines
The US approach to China illustrates the dangers of this accountability gap. Government security requirements are imposed upon researchers and institutions often without clear guidance on what’s allowed or disallowed. US-China scientific collaboration has declined sharply since 2017, even in fields far beyond military or space-based applications. In areas where China leads, continued cooperation could serve US interests. Yet no affirmative guidance is offered. Researchers are often left to guess, and guessing incorrectly can carry severe consequences.
Chinese university leadership changing but party ties still key
The analysis of leadership trends across China’s top universities between 2013 and 2023 found that doctoral degrees are now “nearly universal” among presidents, rising from 82.1 per cent in 2013 to 93.7 per cent in 2023, coinciding with China’s push to build world-class universities. Chinese institutions typically have two leaders; the president, who oversees academic and administrative affairs, and the party secretary, who provides political and ideological leadership. The share of party secretaries with PhDs also increased from 73.2 per cent to 88.5 per cent, the study found.
China could be the world’s biggest public funder of science within two years
China is on the cusp of becoming the world’s biggest public funder of research, according to a forecast by US academics, as stalled growth in government investment in the United States coincides with consistent rises in spending by the Chinese authorities. The analysis — produced exclusively for Nature Index — was the work of researchers from Frontiers in Science and Innovation Policy (FSIP), a programme at the University of California, San Diego, that studies the US research and development (R&D) system and examines the extent to which public and private funding boost technological development.
‘Quality has to catch up with quantity’ in China’s HE expansion
Postiglione’s book, Higher Education in China: Domestic Demands and Global Aspirations, due out next month, charts China’s rise in global higher education, which has been underpinned by heavy state investment. He said that by 2025 China had double the number of students going to college as in the US, four times as many STEM graduates and twice the number of STEM PhDs. He added that, based on research output, China now has “nine of the world’s top 10 universities” and leads globally in fields including chemistry and environmental science.
China hikes research spending as self-reliance remains priority
Filchenko said partnership remains critical to China’s research standing. “Internationally co-authored papers achieve higher citation impact than domestic-only outputs,” he said, pointing to growing partnerships with Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. Despite the increased investment, there are questions about whether China will be able to attract top international talent to boost its knowledge base. Groenewegen-Lau said China is likely to continue drawing researchers with existing ties to the country, but may struggle to attract those without such links. “The money alone…is probably not enough to really change the trend,” he said, citing challenges around language, bureaucracy and career progression.
Why China’s philanthropists are digging deep for research
Zhang believes the combination of financial incentives and the political need for Chinese companies to show their support for the government is building significant momentum overall in private-sector funding of fundamental research. “These two things will become a hotbed for nurturing China’s scientific innovation in the next ten years,” she says. Alongside the rapidly growing pot of public money, it points to an overall investment in fundamental discovery that is rapidly catching the United States, where funding for federal research agencies — such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health — has been under threat under President Donald Trump.
Geopolitical tensions are leading China to rethink research collaboration
In interviews I had with 12 senior academics and administrators at Chinese universities in late 2025, the participants described a shift towards a system of collaboration that still seeks global partnerships, but which is anchored by domestic concerns. The model captures a tension between political pressure to restrict knowledge and data and reputational incentives to remain engaged in international collaboration. As one dean told me, “There is a clear understanding that cutting ourselves off would damage our research capacity and talent development. So, international engagement remains a necessity, not a choice.”
The pros and cons of China’s health role in Africa
This deepened commitment to Africa coincides with a sharp decline in US support for aid programmes in low‑ and middle‑income countries, including for health and collaborative research in Africa. In March 2025, the US government announced that 83% of programmes run by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) would be cancelled. Sub‑Saharan Africa was USAID’s largest recipient region in 2024, receiving an estimated $12.3 billion of the agency’s roughly $35 billion in total allocations. China cannot replace US contributions in Africa, says Han Cheng of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, who studies China’s global engagement. “If you think about the scale and scope of US aid on the ground, China can’t match that.”
China is an innovation powerhouse — but it should do more fundamental research
China’s state-led research model has paid dividends, enabling the nation to funnel vast resources into key sectors, such as artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and integrated circuits. Globally, China now leads in nearly 90% of crucial technologies that markedly enhance, or pose risks to, a country’s national interests, suggests a 2025 analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a think tank based in Canberra. By contrast, between 2003 and 2007, the United States led in more than 90% of areas and China in just 5% of them.
Until next time,
James