like the other poster said, Nature is somewhat of a “gold standard” for academic publishing in the hierarchy of impact factor and all that shit. i have my own reaervations with the entire business-model of the “publish or perish” managerial university, but anyone who says that China is uniquely getting useless / Least Publishable Unit / publons / “slicing the sausage” to get the most amount of pubs from research needs to apply some of that critical insight to the broader academy.

this research and publish model we live under was invented by post ww2 profit seeking western publishers and their collaborators in the neoliberal academic administration. it is absolutely an extremely wasteful game that elevates those who play the angels. when western academics complain about chinese authors sharking the stats, all i hear is sour grapes over someone playing their game better than them, with a dash of eurocentric racial supremacy.

china has over a billion people and they fund the living shit out of scientific research in a way most westerners couldn’t even fathom. of course they are going to run the fucking table.