Sixth Tone have run an article which highlights the often exploitative tendencies of graduate supervisors in Chinese universities.
In Li's case, the accusation is that Li was prevented from working on the academic papers necessary for graduation, instead being cast into servitude, working for the firm owned by the supervisor. Li Peng's treatment is, sadly, all too common and the result of placing far too much power in the hands of academics, many of whom lack integrity. It is a system which, combined with the pressures of Chinese academia, creates and normalises industrial-scale academic misconduct.
I've spent my entire career in China, teaching at Chinese and Sino-Foreign institutions (the latter are by no means immune from this, but are often oblivious to it - in one case, I've helped a student enrolled on a UK PhD programme to submit their thesis when their Chinese supervisor, the Head of Department, was deliberately holding it up, causing extreme levels of stress to the student).
It has long been my belief that the greatest barrier to China's ambitions to create world class universities is the suffocation of academic talent in the early stages of their career, and the self-perpetuating reproduction of an exploitative hierarchical supervisor-student relationship. Of course, there are excellent supervisors. But China has way more than its fair share of nasty supervisors. This is common knowledge and, more problematically, there seems little impulse to meaningfully reform this status quo.
I reproduce here a section from my PhD thesis which draws on an interview with a Researcher at a C9 university. Corroboration of this information was found from a number of sources from grad students, all the way to university Presidents and every step of the academic ladder in between. But my discussion with this researcher was formally recorded and permissions obtained.
While Li Peng was a graduate student at ECUST, my focus here is on the exploitation of doctoral students. However, the problems are clearly related and stem from the same unchecked power
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8.1.3 Manifestations of
Chinese Social Conventions in HE
My own observations in the field of Chinese HE lead
me to believe that skill and ability in managing relationships according to the
diktats of social conventions is substantially more important than academic
ability or administrative ability, regardless of prevalent common sense
opinions that academic ability is the most important factor. Although academic ability is necessary, it is
far from the case that individual academic performance is alone sufficient to
bring success in the accumulation of the various forms of capital at stake in
the academic field. While performance in
the gaokao, undergraduate and postgraduate examinations are necessary to enter
the field of academia, the game changes substantially at the point of
undertaking a PhD, and it is during this phase that the inculcation of norms of
the Chinese academic sphere occurs. What
reveals itself is a system of selection on the basis of a willingness to
conform to the unwritten social rules of the Chinese HE context. It is a system which negates the potential for
dissent and which demands conformity to the conventions of the hierarchies, the
duties attributed to each role and the benefits commensurate with varying tiers
of social status within the academic field.
One
especially surprising admission made by President A, President B, Lecturer A,
Researcher A, and which had been made clear in informal conversations and
unrecorded interviews with several academics and administrative staff at
various institutions, is that senior academics spend a very small proportion of
their time on actual research. This is
especially the case for senior influential scholars, such as academicians
(yuanshi 院士) and senior full Professors in receipt of large
funding grants such as Project 863 and 973, but also for many Professors throughout
the Chinese HE system without very high status levels but who are senior within
their own departments and/or institutions.
However, the lack of research activity does not necessarily translate
into a lack of publication activity, as the dynamics of the research team
adhere to strict hierarchies and divisions of labour. In discussion on the process of selecting
young scholars for involvement in research projects administered by senior
academics Researcher A offered some valuable insights into the accepted orthodoxy
of Chinese academia at this level:
Sometimes
on ability. Sometimes on guanxi. Often the attitude of the (young)
scholar. After several years of
cooperation between the young scholar and the influential scholar, the young
scholar can get very little. For
example, publishing a paper, the first author should be the influential
scholar. The administrative tasks of the
influential scholar should be handled by the young scholar. This is very normal in China. But, everyone
knows it is not correct. There are too
many things in China now, everyone knows its not a good method. But no one wants to change it. In China the research team is not similar to
the research team in western universities.
In this research team, the cooperation between the people in this team
is not to discuss between us to write a paper.
No. We all have our own
roles. The influential person must get resources
from above, and I must write the papers. They (the influential scholars) do not
do any research.
Researcher A (Interview 8)
Co-signing of papers has been highlighted as a
major problem and is rife throughout Chinese academia, with Professor Shen Hong
(Shen, 2000:30) describing the practice as “widespread”, yet
“unacceptable”. Researcher A offers
insight into the unwritten codes of conduct in the relationship between a PhD
candidate and their supervisor. To
clarify, the term young researcher is interchanged here as many PhD candidates
are funded through research projects of their supervisors:
MG: As a
young researcher, to what extent do you have any direction over the research
projects in which you’re involved?
RA: You just
do as you are told. You have no choice.
MG: What if
you refused??
RA: Refused?
(laughter). You would not be included in
this research team.
MG: What if,
for example, ‘I disagree with the way we’re doing this research’? Or you
suggest some other method?
RA: In most
circumstances, there is no chance for you to discuss this. The direction has been determined before the
research project was applied for. PhD
students in China, with some supervisors, have no chance to choose their own
research interests. Their thesis should
be on a subject given to them by their supervisor. If you’re unlucky you’ll encounter this kind
of supervisor. Its very bad.
MG: What if
you objected?
RA: Its
impossible. If you don’t follow my
directions you cannot get your degree early.
Firstly, your supervisor will agree you can get your degree, then
college level, then university level.
Some supervisors are more open. I
just know many supervisors who do not allow the students to refuse or reject
their decisions.
Researcher A (Interview 8)
This
hierarchical and authoritarian relationship is also divided according to
duties, as discussed earlier, whereby junior research team members are
responsible for research and writing of papers and administrative tasks of the
senior research staff, while the senior staff are focused on securing more
resources. Researcher A, referring specifically to his own school at a C9
university elaborated on this point:
It's a very quick method for supervisors to write
papers. Senior scholars its not
pressure, its their aspiration. In
Chinese universities, if I publish a top tier journal paper, I would be awarded
100 000RMB. For one paper. Sometimes shiwuwan (RMB150k). There is method: cooperate with western
scholars. We just provide the data, they
produce the paper. They can be the first
author, we can be the 2nd or 3rd author. 1st author: shiwan (RMB100k); 2nd
author; wuwan (RMB50k); third author; liangwan (RMB20k). It's a very big problem in China. That's the reason Chinese scholars don’t want
to cooperate. I hate this. It's the reason I don’t want to go a national
university. All the national
universities. All of them have the same
reward system.
Research A (Interview 8)
RMB100,
000 at current exchange rates equates to roughly £10, 000. It must be stated that further clarification
confirmed that this bonus structure was particular to a business school at a C9
university, and is not necessarily the norm, but that it is common at
prestigious business schools, with comparable publication bonuses being paid
for publications in the top science journals.
Alarmingly, the order of authors’ names directly influences the bonus
payable, with the 1st author receiving a substantially larger payout
than the 2nd or 3rd author. This information was also corroborated by a
Professor at another well-regarded C9 university business school where bonuses
were claimed to be even higher.
An impediment to change is the
competitive advantage possible from having a small army of young scholars
publishing. Those senior scholars hoping
to compete at the top tier of Chinese academia are compelled to maintain a
productive research profile even when their time is taken up completely by
efforts to secure ever more resources with which to conduct ever-larger
research projects. Yet, the substantial
cash incentives available for publication in world-renowned journals can exceed
a full year’s professorial salary for a single journal publication. Even though these publications have amongst
the most rigourous academic review standards (see Appendix 8 for a list of
journals accepted by a prominent C9 university business school), in many cases
PhD students are expected, prior to and as a condition of the completion of
their studies, to publish in journals of this quality. I had heard this from many PhD students and
post-doctoral researchers and asked Researcher A to clarify the actual
requirements of publication as a pre-condition of graduation:
RA: There is no quality analysis. The only method is to look at the level of
the journal. Top Tier journals I have 3
publications. Second tier, I have
2.
MG: But you are still doing your PhD?
RA: I should have 3 Chinese papers and one
international paper.
MG: If you don’t have those papers, what happens?
RA: No
PhD. Of course, no PhD. They have listed 30 journals, Chinese
journals, you should publish in only these journals. International journals, they also have a
list. A, B, C level.
In
Researcher A’s experience the bonuses paid for publication in journals as
described above were not paid to the PhD student. Even on these papers, published as a condition
of graduating, there is a strong instance of co-signing of papers with the
supervisor often placing their name first on the paper. Researcher A, who was still finalizing their
PhD at the time of the interview and had, at that time, a significant number of
publications, including in journals listed in the Social Science Citation Index
(SSCI) and the Chinese language equivalent, the Chinese Social Science Citation
Index (CSSCI), stated that even those English language SSCI publications were
not counted as they were in publications not ranked by his/her business school
as of sufficient standing. The extent to
which this practice is prevalent across the Chinese HE sector is unclear,
though Researcher A appeared adamant that in the elite universities, where
publication stakes are high and competition is particularly severe, this
practice is widespread. It is difficult
to resist the conclusion that such behaviour, if it is as widespread as I have
been informed, is not only plagiarism on an industrial scale, but is a method
by which research funds which must necessarily be spent on the training of
young doctoral researchers is potentially and effectively laundered through a
process which demands publication of papers by doctoral candidates as a
condition of graduating from a doctoral programme, and for which the supervisor
receives research credit and a financial reward.
8.1.4 The Power of
Social Conventions.
The
practices discussed above are indicative of the strength of informal structures
in controlling and directing behaviour in Chinese HE, including most
importantly the reticence over challenging established practices. As has been
discussed earlier, the willingness to resort to use of regulatory and
legislative means to resolve issues are subsumed by the need to maintain
interpersonal harmony, especially for those occupying the subordinate position
in dyadic ties. As the above example of
co-signing papers shows, there exists a strong resistance to shine a light on
practices that most actors recognize as being morally dubious.
