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Combating China’s retraction crisis

Nature Human Behaviour volume 9, pages 631–634 (2025)Cite this article

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The emergence of China as a global leader in scientific output is being overshadowed by a growing crisis of confidence in its research integrity. In addition to existing efforts, we propose five actionable initiatives to bolster the fight against China’s retraction crisis.

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Fig. 1: Retraction rates of publications by China- and US-affiliated authors in SCIE and SSCI between 2000 and 2022.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable contributions of Z. Liu at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University for generating the figure and H. Zhang at Huanggang Normal University (HNU) for retrieving some of the cited sources. We also extend our gratitude to HNU for the support received from its Scheme of Advanced Incubation Research Projects (202422504) and Think Tank Initiative (202409904).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Studies, Huanggang Normal University, Huanggang, China

    Shaoxiong Brian Xu

  2. Department of English and Communication, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Shaoxiong Brian Xu & Guangwei Hu

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  1. Shaoxiong Brian Xu
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  2. Guangwei Hu
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Correspondence to Shaoxiong Brian Xu.

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Xu, S.B., Hu, G. Combating China’s retraction crisis. Nat Hum Behav 9, 631–634 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02099-w

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