>powerful central government force that doesn't understand research productivity [1]* I'm sure they understand it. But their goal in doing this isn't really r

>powerful central government force that doesn't understand research productivity [1]* I'm sure they understand it. But their goal in doing this isn't really research productivity (though it would be a happy byproduct) it's to obtain prestige, or its illusion. And/or be able to tell the people of your country how great you're doing. "Our country is a rising powerhouse in field X, in the top 3 in the world and still rising!" It's internal propaganda. And externally targeted towards populations of other countries unfamiliar with the academic publishing system, which is most people. So for example the vast majority of people in the US that hear these claims by China, which are then echoed in click-bait headlines or simply taken at face value after a journalist checks something like the various HCR lists. It can even be propaganda, not from China, but from other countries. One of the studies was funded by the US State Department to an Australian group, thus obscuring a primary influence on the results of the study. Then even a single newspaper article can spark a dozen others citing it, propagating the message. All of these directly or indirectly rely on citations to support their headlines [2] https://www.science.org/content/article/china-rises-first-place-most-cited-papers https://www.science.org/content/article/china-rises-first-pl... https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-universities-continue-to-falter-in-world-rankings-china-rising-11665535646 https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-universities-continue-... https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2023-03-02/china-leads-us-in-global-competition-for-key-emerging-technology-study-says https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2023-03-02/... https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE72R6FQ/ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE72R6FQ/ [1] The quality of this comment will be measured by metrics that I made up myself. [2] https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-leads-us-global-competition-key-emerging-technology-study-says-2023-03-02/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/china-leads-us-global-com... *This comment was funded by a grant from its author.