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ometimes, silence speaks louder than words. The latest global university ranking, which was conducted by researchers at Leiden University in the Netherlands, has caused a stir in Western media outlets like the New York Times and Le Monde, which noted the meteoric rise of Chinese universities – eight of which made it into the top 10. Normally, such results spark national pride on Chinese social media and give Beijing's mouthpieces an opportunity to sing the praises of the new mantra of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC): "The East is rising, the West is declining."
Paradoxically, the Dutch ranking has become a source of ridicule among Chinese internet users, who were astonished to see that Oxford University had been beaten by Zhengzhou University. The deafening silence of the official media has revealed the regime's embarrassment; the Leiden ranking, which is based on the number of scientific publications, has mainly reminded the Chinese public of the ongoing scandals involving paper mills – operations that produce paid-for scientific articles on demand. On January 23, the National Natural Science Foundation of China published a list of 46 academics sanctioned for "fraudulent behavior in the publication of scientific research." This is just the tip of the iceberg of xueshu fubai ("academic corruption") that has plagued the country's universities for three decades.
