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China needs to elaborate on plans to modernize its flagging academic journals.
Scientific publishing in China is in a quandary. Many articles in the country's 5,000-plus science and technology journals go unread and uncited, calling into question the value of the research. It also raises doubts over the effectiveness of China's scientific publishing - which, after all, is to disseminate details of research for others around the world to build on. One Chinese scientist has referred to the majority of China's publications as "pollution".
Yet when it comes to publishing in international journals in English, Chinese scientists are second by volume only to those in the United States. Now, librarians and government officials in China are beginning to question why their own journals publish so few of these quality papers. The country's General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), which regulates all publishing, is to make reforms to strengthen its home-grown industry. This makes sense. And publishers in China could no doubt beat their Western...