Peer review in Chinese national journals: historical development and challenges

This study analyzes the history of journal peer review in China through the theoretical lens of historical institutionalism. By analyzing historical records and policies published by the Chinese government and other sources on national journal peer review, this study shows that the history of journal peer review systems in China can be divided into four periods. The first period emerged in the eighteenth century, when the academic beliefs and habits of traditional Chinese intellectuals pushed for peer review alongside the creation of academic/scientific journals (these did not last). The second period occurred in the early twentieth century, when the paradigm of Western science gradually influenced and replaced traditional Chinese science. The procedures and form of peer review in Chinese journals started to become similar to those in Europe and North America. During the third period, after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and until the end of the 1990s, peer review in Chinese journals was more political than scientific. The fourth and current period started in the 2000s, when peer review in China increasingly adopted global science review procedures, but the current peer review system combines global peer review principles with the opposite logic of favor (renqing). The analysis shows that historically peer-review in national journals in China has both converged and differed with peer-review practices internationally, influenced by global and national values, events and pressures, and even today there is but a partial alignment in terms of peer review practices and processes between Chinese national journals and international journals.