this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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The latest Nature Index rankings reveal an astonishing trend: nine of the world’s top 10 research institutions are now Chinese

To fully appreciate China’s meteoric rise, one must look back at the academic landscape a decade ago. When the Nature Index Global rankings were first released in 2014, only eight Chinese universities made it into the top 100. Today, that number has more than quintupled, with 42 Chinese institutions now ranking among the world’s best

One of the most notable policy shifts has been the move away from publication-based evaluation metrics. Previously, Chinese academics were incentivized to publish as many papers as possible, often at the expense of quality. However, recent reforms have introduced a more rigorous peer-review system that prioritizes impactful and innovative research over sheer volume. This shift has resulted in a significant improvement in the credibility and global influence of Chinese scientific output.

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[–] Ioughttamow@fedia.io 57 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Gee, who could have seen this coming

[–] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 24 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Americans at least the ones on YouTube (not a fair Demographic I admit) seem in utter denial about China surpassing them in things.

Its Taiwan I feel bad for as I don't think the US is even capable of saving it anymore and it looks like China may have noticed.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

The US was still #1 in manufacturing but China was getting close to overtaking us. I'm certain they will now.

[–] nulluser@lemmy.world 23 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

Trump just scrapped the commie department of education so free market capitalism can once again save Americs. Education will trickle down from above.

[–] AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space 35 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I'm gonna be real here, just Realpolitik-wise from the perspective of "the West" sans the USA - China is currently proving that they are simply more reliable in geopolitics and even economically, and that is just damn important, even in an adversarial relationship. It isn't even because they are a de-facto dictatorship, Russia is one too, and Russia is a mad dog. They just managed to keep their shit mostly together so far, still riding out their massive growth spurt. Even human rights abuses outside of Realpolitik don't seem as the argument they were: internationally, the US has always had a more greyish record anyhow. But now, considering the US is quickly doing its best to catch up in domestic tyranny, that argument seems to be going fast, too.

Sadly, I don't have huge hopes for China to be a proper "better" hegemon globally, if that should be what ultimately happens - they are facing crises of their own, and have been dabbling in their own brands of economic imperialism, and at least the way their military is gearing up contains a lot of stuff usually used for military imperialism as well.

[–] arafatknee@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 points 5 days ago

The US has been a brutal empire to anyone outside the supplicant, mostly white European, nations of the West.

The kicker is the US has no one to blame for it's decline but itself. It has descended into a techno-military industrial oligarchy addicted to Eurodollar deficit spending and cheap credit. It burned up the global order it created in pointless wars in the Middle East and supporting it's genocidal settler colony in Palestine.

Once countries transition away from using the dollar it is really fucked.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 25 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Please, oh please do or do not research in Chinese. I'm too old to give a flying fuck. But it would be hilarious if suddenly the world had to learn Chinese to be able to use the research results.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I'd like to learn Chinese (which one though?), but I'm afraid I never will. LLMs may help with translation, though.

[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Mandarin is the most accessible and widely spoken, Cantonese is good if you want to spend a lot of time in the south. Good luck if you want to learn one of the hundreds of other dialects, maybe make a friend from one of the places and have them help you.

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I thought they were identical written languages but different spoken. Surely if you were learning to read research papers it wouldn't matter.

[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

There’s differences in the languages even written, for example in mandarin thank you is 感谢/谢谢 whereas in Cantonese it’s 多謝 or 唔該 depending on context. Cantonese also typically uses traditional characters rather than simplified. That second character up there in 多謝 is 谢 but in traditional rather than simplified. I’d imagine most research papers are going to be in simplified Chinese with mandarin phrasing, but learning traditional characters and going to simplified might be easier than learning simplified and then going to traditional.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Hope this reduces cheating in Chinese scientific literature because China overtaking US academia is a pretty bad sign when to comes to trust academia otherwise.

[–] BrightCandle@lemmy.world 18 points 5 days ago (2 children)

One of the issues here is that being a Chinese paper in any field is still the most correlated with the paper being faked in some way. So while china is producing a lot of science and good science its also the world leader in garbage fake science too and it needs to get a handle on the problem.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago

i rarely hear good research papers out of china, unless its something like botany, or plants,animals that require cooperation with other universities all over the globe. plants because china has a megadivesity of flowers specifically.

[–] Frieren@lemm.ee 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

As if that’s not the same for western papers lmao.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

not at the rate of china, and fake papers are usually scrutinized more in the us, and they do produce alot of low quality papers, mainly its because PHDs have a hard time getitng jobs, so they have to write dozens of papers before even being noticed by a employer, most of the time its academic employers. it will be hard to get past some scrutiniy, since your papers have to get published on a well respected journal eventually, like nature,,,,etc. other journals journal of new england medicine, lancet, science journal.

[–] arafatknee@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Quick, send another billion dollars to israel!

[–] Not_mikey@slrpnk.net 12 points 5 days ago

And deport all the PHDs who criticize it. That'll get us back in the top spot academically.

Is Nature receiving any Chinese propaganda money? In today's world it is worth being skeptical.

In the top 50, Chinese universities are at 12, 13, 36 and 47 in this list

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

in the us they have same problem, as publishing too many low-quality papers as well. especially when they are trying to get jobs in academia, when i went to one of those "talks, orientation" one researcher at to write 40+papers before even looked at by a university employer. they care more about quantity over quality, basically they see the amount you have written equal to quality of research.(not a PHD myself), also that many in the phd are abandoing thier fields, because of the above issues, plus job prospects. why chinese research isnt trusted, was probably because of thier quality of reasearch, plus they fudge thier results alot too, and they have issue of industrial and research espionage going on blatantly.

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 9 points 5 days ago

I think you can remove “in research” from that headline.

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com 2 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Just don’t research or publish anything that might make the CCP look bad!

[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 33 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Trump unilaterally declared certain words in research papers would get funding for your research (and even university) revoked.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-federal-agencies-websites-words-dei.html?unlocked_article_code=1.904.1FgL.3feAf1QvdpOb

Gift link to the list of words compiled by The NY Times.

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Both governments can be terrible yknow

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, but the US is actially starting to be worse in this regard than China

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com -1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Tell me that when the US throws up a Great Firewall that blocks all non-approved media and internet

[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 days ago

As if the NSA was not suveilling the whole internet through a dragnet.

Look, I'm not saying China is perfect or even good. I'm saying that it's starting to look like there is no moral or values based argument to buy Apple instead of Huawei or Tesla instead of BYD.

[–] yagurlreese@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

honestly I don't care, what the US is doing is what on all fronts. people on China for the most part genuinely approve of their government.

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Where are you getting info on the CCPs approval?

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

The Ash Center Research Team found that approval for the CPC surpasses 90%. Crucially, the study acknowledges the state control of media and propaganda, but points to the actual dramatic rise in living conditions over the decades that has made the most impact:

While the CCP is seemingly under no imminent threat of popular upheaval, it cannot take the support of its people for granted. Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread, our survey reveals that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. For government leaders, this is a double-edged sword, as citizens who have grown accustomed to increases in living standards will expect such improvements to continue, and citizens who praise government officials for effective policies may indeed blame them when such policy failures affect them or their family members directly. While our survey reinforces narratives of CCP resilience, our data also point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.

This is reflected in increased upward mobility, manifesting in increasing feelings of the country being "headed in the right direction," a stark contrast with the direction the US is moving:

[–] Rolder@reddthat.com 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

One thing I find interesting in that is that Chinese citizens have low trust in local government but high trust in the federal side. But as the study points out, it’s the opposite in the US with high trust locally but low federal.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The US places a much greater emphasis on individualism, while the PRC's economic system is much more focused on central planning and a common, collectivist culture. Holdovers from the Cultural Revolution, where citizens were encouraged to always look upon their local officials critically, led to less trust in the local governments. The central government, on the other hand, has had sweeping and targeted programs focused on rural development in recent years, as the CPC has acknowledged the stark division between the highly developed urban areas and the underdeveloped rural areas.

China is pretty complicated, and getting a good picture of how they are today requires analyzing what the CPC takes issue with and what it approves of in how they performed under Mao, the Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping, and now Xi Jinping. There have been other leaders, but these really represent 4 different "eras" for the economic makeup as a whole, and has most Chinese very hopeful for the future.

[–] MeThisGuy@feddit.nl 2 points 4 days ago

thx for the share

[–] DrDeadCrash@programming.dev 5 points 4 days ago

We don't have room to make these jokes, anymore.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

I know a lot of western researchers working in China and it's an easy problem to avoid if you're studying STEM stuff. For humanities there are basically zero westerners there because it's an absolute minefield to navigate even if you'd like to study pro-chinese fields like Chinese art or even something relatively neutral like music production. I wouldn't trust any paper from China in that regard.