> Simply saying "opinion vs opinion" is a false equivalency. No, it's not. That "one researcher" made an opinion that he thinks nationalism is at play. “They w

> Simply saying "opinion vs opinion" is a false equivalency. No, it's not. That "one researcher" made an opinion that he thinks nationalism is at play. “They want everything to come from China.” is literally an opinion. > but I've lived and studied International Relations in China (at Tsinghua University, where many of China's leaders studied), and I saw first hand how research was corrupted and self-regulated to draw certain conclusions that agreed with the Government's known or perceived position. That's anecdotal. The snippet I included, directly after the nationalist's opinion, is a Chinese guy (part of the "they" I assume) at a Chinese university, disagreeing with him. Do you have actual numbers of how widespread the nationalist agenda on this particular issue is? Or is this just more opinion? Also, that sounds similar to lots of PhD's lives trying to get funding from their government. >I know there is strong nationalistic beliefs around human origins in China as well, and suspect strongly the same forces that affect IR academic research are at play here. Fake fossils are also extremely common in China[1][2], and widespread racism, especially toward black people, is difficult to overstate[3] (which leaves many Chinese refusing to believe they may have originated in Africa). I could replace "China" with "Japan", who aren't exactly strangers to a similar agenda, heck even the NYT commented on it. But I don't claim to assume the whole country thinks that way because I doubt there are numbers on it.