Last week, a Taiwanese medical doctor submitted a paper to an international medical journal. But then the journal’s Chinese editor emailed the doctor requiring her to add “China” after “Taiwan” in the paper. The editor indicated that Taiwan had to be downgraded to just another province of China, or the article would not be published, and that the practice was to comply with China’s regulations. The editor’s message to the doctor was posted on Twitter, which is widely used by academics in Europe and the US. Apparently, the post has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. In particular, many German academics who retweeted the post questioned why the renowned publisher of the journal, which is headquartered in Germany, allows itself to be restricted by Chinese regulations.

After being inquired by German and American reporters, the publisher of the journal issued a statement saying that for all the journals it owns, the authors can decide how they want their institutional affiliation to appear in the journal. Yet the journal to which the Taiwanese doctor submitted her paper is not directly owned by the publisher but by a university in China, and therefore is subject to China’s regulations, the statement adds. According to a Radio Free Asia report, the journal in question is funded by the China Association for Science and Technology and China’s National Radio and Television Administration.

Incidentally, the American think tank CSIS released a report last month on a particular practice of Chinese academics. Studying the issues of scientific research journals from around the world over the past decade, CSIS researchers detected a growing tendency among Chinese scholars to attach to their papers a Chinese map containing the nine-dash line, even when the South China Sea region has nothing to do with the areas those journals specialize in, such as carbon emissions, water pollution and urban heat. Recently, an article on China’s health insurance research published in The Lancet features an analysis that treats Taiwan as a Chinese province in a research database. A Taiwanese academic wrote a letter to The Lancet to protest against the problematic methodology, but the magazine did not publish the letter.

Three years ago, several academic journals, under pressure from the Chinese government, had to change their online search setting so that netizens in China could not access Taiwan and Tibet-related papers published by the journals. In other words, China’s past academic strategy involved banning information, but today its mission is to export its outlook to the world by presenting its map of the South China Sea, changing Taiwan’s name and diminishing Taiwan’s status.

The Germany-headquartered publisher draws a line on which of its journals have academic freedom and which do not: those directly owned by the company are free while those by Chinese entities have to comply with Chinese regulations. Before academics submit their papers, they had better check who are on the editorial team. Such a demarcation is the publisher’s way of evading its responsibility and also makes a mockery of academic freedom. However, given the fact that the world of academic journals is increasingly driven by profits and click rates, and given the rigorous process of reviewing academic papers, the operation structure of such journals is unlikely to be overhauled in the short term. Meanwhile, amid the coronavirus pandemic, many academic papers are published swiftly in large numbers and the quality of the papers is not consistent. Nonetheless, the amount of published papers on Taiwan’s experience of fighting Covid-19 is not in proportion to the island’s brilliant work in curbing the pandemic.

In the long run, it takes a significant number of Taiwanese academics at home and abroad to get more involved in the international academia in order to bring changes to the operation structure of international journals. To this end, more Taiwanese people need to study abroad and land jobs in the academia. The international situation this year provides many windows of opportunity to achieve just that, and I have three suggestions.

First, major academic conferences around the world this year have moved online. This implies a significant reduction in the cost of Taiwanese scholars taking part in such events. More efforts should be made to encourage teachers and students to take advantage of this new trend and share their experiences, present their qualifications and strengthen their international networks. They can also join well-known academic training programs online. When verifying registration fees and membership fees, educational institutions and the Ministry of Education should be more flexible in view of the changes prompted by the pandemic. Some cases that do not involve academics going abroad can be counted as overseas trips.

Second, although many U.S. universities continue to accept students for their master’s and PhD programmes this year, they have no scholarships to give to students. Meanwhile, with topics such as the Sino-U.S. cold war, Taiwan’s political and economic development, public health, medical, and biological issues being given more importance, Taiwanese students who are awardees of scholarships may stand a higher chance of securing a university place in the U.S.. If, amid the pandemic, Taiwan needs the help of international organizations or to boost its bargaining power in negotiations, it would need to send more students to study master’s programs in related fields. Before the December deadline for applying for overseas university programs, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can consider offering more scholarships to Taiwanese studying overseas, so that more of them can go abroad and their stay abroad can be extended. The government can also improve the transparency of the review system for scholarships offered to student studying abroad. For example, advice related to how students’ scholarship applications are reviewed can be proffered.

Third, nowadays being an editor of an academic journal also counts in assessment of the academic service of university professors. A few journals also pay academics to do such work. If the Taiwanese government wants to lend a helping hand, although it cannot offer subsidies directly, it can reduce the number of the professors’ teaching hours, refine the way salary credits are calculated, and encourage groups of academics to submit papers to special editions of international journals, all with a view to strengthening Taiwanese academics’ international presence. Another way is to establish a Taiwan section at international conferences with a fixed budget set aside by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

(Austin Wang Horng-En, assistant professor of Political Science, University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

Click here for Chinese version

---------------------------------

Apple Daily’s all-new English Edition is now available on the mobile app: bit.ly/2yMMfQE

To download the latest version,

iOS: bit.ly/AD_iOS

Android: bit.ly/AD_android

Or search Appledaily in App Store or Google Play