Beijing probes security at academic journal database

China's internet regulator has launched an investigation into the security regime protecting academic journal database China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), citing national security concerns. In its announcement of the investigation, the China Cyberspace Administration (CAC) said: It is reported that CNKI holds a …

[elsergiovolador]

No such thing

CNKI is a privately-owned publishing

There is no private ownership in China. You can be an administrator of something, but everything is de facto owned by CPC.

Any mention that something is privately owned in China is for propaganda purposes aimed at Western consumer, to make them think China is very much Western and the blood thirsty communist regime is just a decoration, a quirk.

[Brunhilde]

Re: No such thing

This is your opinion but is not fact. There is private ownership in China. The use of pathos in your comment reduces the credibility of your statement.

[EnviableOne]

Re: No such thing

there is private ownership, at the discretion of the the CPC

Just ask Jack Ma (Alibaba) or "Pony" Ma (Tencent)

both got hauled over the coals for not doing things the right way

[Pascal Monett]

"It will fully comply with the investigation"

Of course it will. The CEO doesn't want to fully investigate the interior of a Chinese jail.

[Mike 137]

State of the game

"a privately-owned publishing company that maintains a monopoly on academic journal searches in China. In recent years, it has been criticized for imposing exorbitant price increases"

As is the case almost everywhere else, the serious downside being that only institutional researchers can afford the subscriptions, so independents have a hard time contributing to science. That matters because many of the important major breakthroughs in science have been originated by independent researchers (or at least by institutional researchers going out on a limb - something that's increasingly difficult in an age of grant funded science).

It's good to see open journals emerging, but unfortunately a lot of them are not up to standard yet so what they publish can't always be trusted. And indeed some of them charge authors a fortune to publish papers, so it's often just another facet of the same problem.

[sitta_europea]

"Announcements of investigations into domestic companies from the CAC are rare, prompting questions about Beijing's motives in doing so. Drawing attention to the CNKI could elicit attention and invite attacks on the organization – which could be a good method for Beijing to teach the company a lesson about hiking its prices up. Or perhaps it lets China's cyber-defenders sit back and watch the tools and techniques used by attackers in hope of learning how other nations conduct such operations."

Or they might really be worried about what they say they're worried about.

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that the scientific paper that directly lead to the development of the F117 and low-radar observables technology was authored inside the Soviet Union; you would think there would be an interest in strong controls around R&D on some subjects!

Then again, most people leaving university with a reasonable physics, chemistry or biology qualification probably know enough on how to do "bad" stuff in their respective fields. Bad being objective around the question of who one does it to.

Pricing out their own use of standards is probably a prompt because the alternative presumably, is buying into Western scientific journals. In my own field, I'd say at least half of all academic papers written are coming from China right now - partly because they have been gearing up the past 20 years building new stuff at pace; and therefore have lots of expertise in the subject.