Sunday, December 6, 2015

The hurdles and hardships of science in China

In my last post on China I discussed why China is becoming a scientific juggernaut. I focussed on all the things that seem to be working in its favour (funding, high expectations on scientists, etc.). While I do think that science in China is good and getting better, it is also important to point out some of the hurdles and limitations that hold back some aspects of scientific advance here.

In my previous post I noted that the expectations placed on students and researchers (i.e., to produce a minimum number of papers in journals with high impact factors, IFs) provided motivation to do good science. This is undoubtedly true, however, these strict expectations also reinforce a strategy of ‘paper-chasing’ where students are encourage to figure out how to get a paper. This is because the reward structure is so quantitative. While this type of evaluation systems has pros and cons, it does create a different sense of urgency than I’ve experienced elsewhere.

Pragmatic factors
The Great Fire Wall of China from "Cracks appear in the Great Fire Wall of China" posted by the China Daily Mail, Sep. 25th 2013.
I have never yelled at my computer or cursed the internet as much as I have in China. In the west we often hear about the ‘Great Firewall of China’ and probably do not think much about what this actually means. It sucks. The internet barely functions for significant proportions of the working day. I thought that this might have to do with the number of people and lack of infrastructure, but I no longer believe this to be true. Other countries in the region have great internet, and China has very advanced infrastructure. I’m pretty sure that when there is high traffic, the national security protocols and activity monitoring servers are the bottleneck.

Because the government policy is to block certain websites, most of the scientific internet websites and data sharing portals are not accessible here, but this may change at any given time. For example: Google Drive, Dropbox, Facebook, Blog sites, Twitter, Google Maps, and Google Scholar are all services routinely used by scientists and which are blocked in China. The reason for these to be blocked, as far as I understand it, is that they do not share users’ activities and the government cannot monitor what individuals share and download (which reinforces the value of these services to me). I also suspect that they are blocked to give local companies a chance to succeed without competition from global corporations, or perhaps simply because of disagreements with the companies.

I have had immense trouble trying to share files with my lab back in Canada (and to post this blog entry –which is why I’m doing it from Cambodia!). I am not currently engaging in social media –something that I saw as a legitimate activity for communicating science. I am having a very hard time searching for articles without Google Scholar. I also have trouble with other websites that should not be blocked, but that use third party encryption. For example, I can’t log in to my University library in Toronto, and I couldn’t connect my Canadian grant application to the Canadian Common CV (which we are required to do in Canada) because the CCV web interface was blocked (I had to get my post doc in Canada to do it for me). I have tried to go to researchers’ websites to find that they are blocked because they use a blogging site (e.g., Wordpress). The amount of time I spend doing basic online professional activities has increased 3 to 4-fold.

This is important because Chinese scientists are at a disadvantage when it comes to international collaboration and participating in online initiatives. I would encourage scientists outside of China to consider these imposed limitations to ensure that information and collaboration is barrier-free. Here are some tips:

  1. Don’t link to your Google scholar publications on the publications page of your website
  2. Don’t use a blog site to host your website (e.g., Wordpress)
  3. Don’t use Dropbox or Google drive to collaborate on papers
  4. Don’t use gmail as your work e-mail, Air China, for example, won’t send e-mails to gmail.
  5. Social media has emerged as a great way to communicate with broader communities, it is important to recognize that these dialogues exclude Chinese scientists.
  6. Ironically, as I write in this blog, blogs are blocked and while blogs provide a great platform to discuss ideas and issues, they are not available to Chinese scientists. 

These last two are interesting as journals increasingly require or request tweets or blog posts to help maximize exposure, but these forms of communication are not on scientists’ radar here.

Chinese science has been increasing by leaps and bounds despite these limitations. This is a testament to the hard work and dedication by Chinese scientists. I have no doubts that basic scientific research in China will continue to increase its stature and impact.

One thing that is interesting to me is that many of the graduate students here use VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) to mask their IP addresses. They are able to access blogs, Google Scholar, etc. In conversations with people, VPN use is extremely widespread and successful at circumventing government filters, most of the time (there seems to be an arms race between the government and VPNs). It really makes me wonder how much longer these governmental controls can be realistically maintained.


Jonathan Tonkin said...

Nice post, Marc. I hear you - I experienced all the same problems when I lived there. I used a VPN, which worked well most, but not all, of the time. The biggest problem for me was just the speed of the internet. Skype was a nightmare, which was especially troublesome for job interviews. Another, bizarre regular occurrence was BBC going black for a few minutes when anything about China came on the TV, if it wasn't all good news. Certainly an exciting but frustrating place to live and work.

Marc Cadotte said...

I feel like I'm in the middle of a government-VPN arms race. The VPNs are inconsistent. Yes Skype has been a pain, especially for committee meetings and defences back in Toronto. I go old school and do them on the phone now.

Xingfeng Si said...

Great post, Marc. I think the skill of using VPNs to access the blocked websites is the basic requirement for Chinese scientists, at least for the young generation. Thank you for introducing these six tips you mentioned above to international colleagues. Sometimes even the institution or university websites are blocked in China. To keep connected with international colleagues, we have to use a VPN to access most of blogs and social websites, such as what I am typing this comment :)

Dr. Fox said...

Marc, I'm a bit puzzled by your suggestion that academics outside China voluntarily decline to use useful websites and online services that are blocked in China. I'm puzzled for a couple of reasons:

1. Academics in various places outside China face their own obstacles, some of which are mitigated (at least potentially) if lots of people use free services like Twitter and WordPress.

2. How does it help Chinese academics who can't access useful website or online service X if non-Chinese academics stop using that service? I mean, academics in many developing countries can't afford expensive equipment that many developed country academics can. Should academics in the developed world stop using expensive equipment? Are you really arguing for such a strong preference for equality over efficiency? Apologies if I'm badly misreading you here, as I suspect I might be.

Marc Cadotte said...

Thanks Jeremy (tough for me to respond -I'm back in China). No -just saying that with international collaborations and interactions, we should all be mindful of the barriers. For example, if someone chooses to host their lab website on Wordpress or link their publications to Google Scholar, they should be cognizant that they have cut access for a large community of scientists. And no, of course scientists shouldn't stop using certain services, that would be silly (I don't know where your expensive equipment comment comes from, Chinese labs are the envy of scientists from elsewhere), but I've changed my online behaviour since developing collaborations with Chinese scientists and moving here.

Dr. Fox said...

Thanks for the reply Marc, especially given the hoops you must've had to jump through to post it. I'll reply to your reply just for the record, but no worries if you don't feel that continuing the conversation is worth the effort for you.

Re: expensive equipment, I wasn't thinking of China specifically. I was just raising another hypothetical example to make my point: just because some people, through accidents of where they were born, lack access to something that's helpful in the conduct of science, doesn't necessarily mean that others fortunate enough to have access should refrain from taking advantage of that access. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

I of course agree that, if you have collaborators, you need to find a way of working that works for them as well as you. So if your collaborators can't access Dropbox or whatever, sure, you can't collaborate via Dropbox.

But if we're talking more broadly about "interactions", or even potential interactions, that might be shaped by one's choice of online tools, I confess I'm not sure what "mindfulness" amounts to in practice. At least when it comes to use of services that are blocked in China. Once I've made the choice to use a service that's blocked in China (WordPress for blogging, in my case), I don't really see that there's anything further I can *do*, no matter how "mindful" I am. And as you say, the value of many online tools is sufficiently large and obvious that it would be silly for people to voluntarily not use them.

Can you be more concrete--what exactly have you changed about your online behavior, in light of your experience in China? Is it just the things listed in your post--not using Gmail for work, not hosting one's lab website on a blocked service like WordPress, and listing your publications on your lab website rather than just linking to Google Scholar?