Rather poor article because it doesn’t answer the question of why fake research is so prevalent in China.
There are a few reasons but they include 1) almost everybody is committing massive fraud making actual policing difficult (are you going to fire everybody ?) 2) strong incentives to publish papers without quality (in the us judging aspiring faculty applicants on total papers is taboo)
Same reason why all sorts of gnarly scams (melamine milk, gutter oil, etc) are/were so prevalent in China: there were no consequences. But some of the melamine people were sentenced to death, and the article notes that the government is starting to clamp down on fake research too.
It feels that Chinese govt. is complacent in that scheme however: allowing scientific scams have helped to increase interest in science domestically and create illusion of productivity internationally. Now it has began hurting, so they are cracking down.
Imagine reading the entire article, subscribing to the Economist, and only getting this tiny fragment that could be otherwise found on a passing HN comment.
Honestly, I agree that the article doesn't do a satisfactory job of answering "why?". Simply stating that researchers have an incentive to is true of everywhere.
There are a few reasons but they include 1) almost everybody is committing massive fraud making actual policing difficult (are you going to fire everybody ?) 2) strong incentives to publish papers without quality (in the us judging aspiring faculty applicants on total papers is taboo)