Corruption in China’s Academic Circles Driving Spread of Fake Research Papers: University President

Rain drips from a graduation hat during a ceremony at Wuhan University on June 22, 2018 in Wuhan, China.Wang He/Getty Images

Rampant corruption and academic fraud in China are driving the flow of fake academic papers, according to a university president.

On May 18, Rao Yi, the president of the Capital University of Medical Sciences, published a blog in the form of student-teacher dialogue on his social media account, alleging corruption in Chinese academic circles. The post begins with a disclaimer that it is a fable, but if readers felt it had similarities to the truth, they were free to believe it, possibly to evade Chinese censorship.

According to his post, the academic statuses of some “leaders and experts” were paid for, as anyone could pay for a guaranteed peer-review process and be published in a top-tier international journal.

In 2022, the scientific publisher Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) retracted 323 Chinese-affiliated research papers that had reportedly undergone a fabricated peer-review process.

According to a February report in Nature, a British scientific weekly, of nearly 14,000 retraction notices issued by all publishers in a single year in 2023, more than three-quarters involved Chinese co-authors. Since 2021, more than 17,000 retractions have involved Chinese scholars, the most among all countries.

“The Chinese academic corruption is spreading like a ‘virus’ polluting the world,” said Li Yuanhua, a history scholar living in Australia.

“There is another kind of academic corruption in China,” Mr. Li told The Epoch Times. “Some professors or experts do not conduct substantive scientific research but take large amounts of research funding from the state. They even squandered this funding in some overseas academic institutions,” he alleged.

Instructors Take Credit for Students’ Research

Liu Yan (a pseudonym) graduated from Jiangnan University’s Institute of Bioengineering in Jiangsu Province in 2020. She told The Epoch Times that it is a fairly common phenomenon in Chinese universities to fabricate papers, write an essay on behalf of others, or pay for an essay.

Ms. Liu confessed that she had also faked a data chart in her graduation thesis. The Science Citation Index (SCI) accepted the thesis, and her fraudulent data has not been detected.

She said she felt very remorseful and hoped to make up for her mistake because she was going to study abroad and did not want to have a record of academic misconduct.

She says, “I’ve been trying to get my thesis tutor to correct it, but he ignored me.”

Ms. Liu told The Epoch Times that she spent two years doing experiments, analyzing, and finally completing her thesis. However, the instructor wrote the first author’s name as his own, citing that he needed to use the paper to apply for funds and title enhancement.

She brought it up with the university and the thesis tutor to correct the first author, but to no avail.

Her tutor even called the police after Ms. Liu’s continuous requests, resulting in Ms. Liu being interrogated by the police.

She also alleged that at least four other papers published had the instructor’s name as the first author, and she identified three of them as written by other students.

Scientific Ghostwriting Business

The business of ghostwriting has flourished on e-commerce and social media platforms, forming a complete gray industry chain in China.

A May 21 report by state media, Beijing News, said an undercover investigation found that Chinese “paper mills” are plagiarizing papers on a massive scale, fabricating data, and using artificial intelligence to generate them.

The price of essays for ordinary undergraduates and specialists ranges from 200 to 500 yuan (about $28 to $70), while the price of essays on science research involving specialties ranges from 600 to 700 yuan (about $80 to $90). Some professional ghostwriters can earn up to 30,000 yuan (about $4,200) a month, according to the report.

A similar undercover report was released by CCP-backed Xinhua in January 2022. Although over two years have passed, the industry is still booming.