This paper provides statistics on primary science journals published in China, emphasizing the 1100 online journals (out of 1800 total). In 2010, about a third of the journals were open access. The open-access journals have a higher impact factor, but not necessarily more citations. The journals face important economic and personnel difficulties. Several large commercial databases include the full texts of almost all of them, and these databases are generally better adapted to the digital world than the individual journals, with more experienced staff and more services such as editorial platforms. The databases also get a larger share of the revenue, whereas the individual journals get less, even though they provide the main content.

The authors state that the journals need more money; the lack of financial support, whether from databases, individual readers, or sponsoring organizations, hampers their efforts to develop more attractive online services. Furthermore, they can’t raise prices because piracy is a major problem for Chinese journals. Cry me a river.