Under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), academic fraud in China has been a longstanding issue and has become a widespread phenomenon. Recently, Ráo Yì, the president of Capital Medical University, exposed the chaos of some Chinese experts paying large sums of money to publish papers in top international journals. Analysis suggests that academic fraud in China is spreading like a virus worldwide.
On the 18th of last month, Ráo Yì, the president of Capital Medical University, published an article on his public account “Ráo Discusses Science,” using allegory to reveal that the academic status of some experts in mainland China is obtained through financial transactions. By spending between 3 to 8 million yuan (RMB), one could have their papers published in top journals, exchanging for fame and fortune.
The article pointed out that if submitter A receives information from editor B and if A gives a few million yuan to C, then B can guarantee that C will be a reviewer, and C can ensure the acceptance of A’s manuscript. If three or four papers are published, opportunities for prestigious accolades such as National Distinguished Young Scholars, Changjiang Scholars Program, and academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences or Chinese Academy of Engineering will follow, leading to access to more resources than just a few million or tens of millions of yuan.
Ráo Yì’s article sparked heated discussions online. Netizen “Zōng Huī” commented: “Teacher Ráo’s language skills are still inadequate. The style chosen is wrong. This is not an allegory but a fairy tale, as the central idea of the entire text is still based on ‘if there are those with a remaining conscience’.”
Some netizens suggested that the affairs in the academic field could be the subject of an epic martial arts novel. Others remarked, “I used to think the entertainment industry was chaotic, but now I feel the academic circle is just another kind of entertainment industry.”
One netizen questioned: “It is unlikely for these people to have a moral awakening and completely wash their hands of it after reading an article. So, I would like to ask if such things cannot be avoided through institutional construction? In a similar way, in the capital market, if insider trading is conducted, fines or even imprisonment can result, are there similar regulations or systems in the academic field?”
Liú Yàn (pseudonym), who graduated in 2020 from the School of Bioengineering at Jiangnan University in Jiangsu, revealed to Dajiyuan that in Chinese universities, academic misconduct, paper ghostwriting, and purchasing papers are common occurrences. Her thesis included a falsified data chart, which was published and indexed by the Science Citation Index (SCI), but no one discovered the falsified data. As she chose to study abroad, this experience of fraud may have implications for her, prompting her to return to her school seeking her advisor’s help in rectifying the falsified data chart.
She said, “At that time, I found the image, then collected experimental results. There was one image I couldn’t find, so I simulated it with something else, creating a forged image. Now, I am trying to rectify it with my advisor, who, however, is avoiding me.”
For her, another crucial issue is authorship of the paper. She dedicated two years conducting experiments, analysis, etc., to write the paper, but the advisor, needing to use the paper for fund applications and job evaluations, listed themselves as the first author. Liú Yàn needed this paper to apply for studying abroad.
She went to Jiangsu seeking justice for the paper but was ignored by the university. She chased after her advisor, only to have the police involved and be interrogated.
She further revealed that among her advisor’s 20 notable papers, her paper ranked fifth, with four of those papers having the advisor’s name as the first author, and she confirmed that three papers published in 2020 were written by other students.
Liú Yàn may have only falsified a data chart, but for current university students, they can rely on “paper mills” to handle their theses, with a few hundred yuan enough to secure a lengthy paper. This has developed into an industry chain within China.
Recently, reporters from the New Capital News went undercover in “paper mills,” confirming that paper ghostwriting has indeed become an industry chain. They advertised through social platforms, attracted clients, negotiated prices, and hired writers. The intermediaries touted “teacher writing,” considered as “professional writers” by the graduates, some of whom had only completed middle school or vocational education. They are primarily adept at plagiarism in papers or using AI (Artificial Intelligence) for writing.
Reportedly, undergraduate and college papers range from 200 to 500 yuan, while professional scientific research papers command prices of six to seven hundred yuan. In group chats, once the intermediaries post the details, writers immediately claim the assignments.
In April of this year, a studio primarily engaged in “paper writing” received over 600 paper orders, including ghostwriting, programming, drawing, editing, and plagiarism reduction (decreasing paper duplication).
For graduating students, troublesome theses can be easily managed by AI according to writers. “There’s no need to worry about quality. With AI writing, a ten thousand-word dissertation can be completed in an afternoon,” claimed a writer.
The writers’ principle is to complete more orders in the shortest time to earn more money. Some writers can write two papers a day, while professional writers can earn up to 30,000 yuan in a month.
According to the British scientific journal Nature, nearly 14,000 retraction statements were issued by all publishers in the year 2023, setting a new record.
Approximately three-quarters of these retractions involved Chinese scholars. Within the over 9,600 retracted papers from one journal under the publisher Hindawi, about 8,200 originated from China. Since 2021, over 17,000 retracted papers have involved Chinese scholars.
Historian Li Yúanhua from Australia further exposed another form of academic corruption in mainland China. He stated that some scholars returning to China utilize the huge research funds injected by the CCP, providing several million yuan or even tens of millions to collaborate with overseas teams for basic experiments, where they only finance the projects without any personal involvement, completing their own topics in the end.
He said, “Another tactic is ‘sharing the loot’ (referring to splitting, sharing academic achievements). In China, this includes the evaluation of academicians and achieving significant topics, which are actually controlled by academic cliques for splitting the spoils throughout the entire process. For instance, if my student forms one system and your student forms another system, within their respective systems, the spoils are divided. If you are not part of this system, regardless of your achievements, even if you are an academicians, you will not receive a share.”
He believes that the academic field reflects Chinese society, serving as a corrupt circle entwined within a system of corruption. “The CCP has industrialized academic corruption, spreading like a virus, contaminating the world,” he added.