Doctorate in China

[honzan]

Does anyone have any experience with it? How does academic research work in China? You don't see too many Chinese authors being published in international academic journals (i.e. those affiliated with a Chinese university) except for those working on topics related to China (so it seems to me at least).

I am thinking about applying for a doctorate in Economics and I am interested in Chinese economy / development economics within the Chinese context. What are the research opportunities at Chinese universities and is there any funding? For example, if you want to carry out field research in China? Thanks for any info.

[renzhe]

You don't see too many Chinese authors being published in international academic journals (i.e. those affiliated with a Chinese university)

This is slowly changing, at least in my experience.

The major problem of East Asian universities has always been, and still is, the atrocious level of English. Most papers get rejected because nobody can even make any sense of them. This is also slowly changing, but will take quite a while to reach some sort of parity, IMHO.

Doing a PhD in China would be a really cool thing to do, but keep in mind that good universities in China have an abundance of incredibly brilliant local students, the competition is immense, and scholarships below subsistence level. For post-doc and lecturer positions they have returning researchers from top universities and you won't get anywhere without guanxi in the first place. So I imagine it to be an incredibly difficult prospect, with next-to-zero recognition outside of China.

Unfortunately, because it really would be a cool thing to do.

[skylee]

Perhaps you could consider the "Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme" considering - 1) Hong Kong is part of China, 2) three universities (HKUST, HKU, CUHK) in the Scheme are among the top 10 in Asia according to the recent THE and QS league tables, and HKU is #34 or #22 in the world rankings, 3) you can do the research in Hong Kong, which might provide better access to reference materials etc; 4) it is a fellowship scheme.

[neverending]

Mainland Chinese universities are getting increasing international exposure in certain fields - mostly those relating to science/engineering. I come across them every so often in my own research. Having said that, it is still a rare occurrence (excluding the HK universities, which get tons of papers published in my field.)

Renzhe is certainly right about the quality of English being a large factor. When I'm reviewing (anonymous) paper submissions I often have to reject them based on extremely poor English alone, and I wouldn't be surprised, based on the nature of the mistakes, if a large number of these come from mainland China. Even my Chinese colleagues, who are doing their PhDs here in the UK, have taken several years to reach publishable levels of academic English without their supervisor heavily revising it. I imagine this will change in future, though, as more Chinese students complete their studies abroad and return home to become researchers and lecturers.

From my experience, there are also significant cultural differences between those doing research in western countries and China - usually in the west PhDs are done purely for interest. For either status or money, there are far better paths. However, in China, a PhD is seen as a very desirable, high status career path (so long as it's not in the arts), and parents like to push their kids into it. This means a lot of the Chinese PhD candidates I've interacted with (a small sample admittedly) have unusually weak interest in their field, and are more interested in publishing large volumes of low-content papers - to lengthen their CV - than getting meaningful research done.

[icebear]

Regarding #2, as well recognized as those HK universities may be in Asia, or globally for general reputation, there aren't really any Chinese universities with a strong reputation in economics - I think the best (HKUST) ranks in the 200s range globally (which is very low to pursue a doctorate at). Rankings aren't everything and there might be interesting research going on in China; that's irrelevant for someone pursuing a PhD, because what really matters to them should be the type of placement they can expect after 5 years of serious toil and very low renumeration.

One thing you'll notice is that many of those in China who do publish in decent journals usually 'piggy back' into them with reputable Western researchers. Often a Western economist (or a Chinese economist based in the US) will have an idea for novel empirical research in China but require someone on the ground in China for data issues, ensuring the analysis is relevant, etc. They partner with a Chinese academic who will eventually get a good citation, while providing a little army of Chinese research assistants to type in all those 1980s data tables that were never digitized (that could be you!) but are crucial to the research and a Chinese name below the title which helps legitimize any assumptions that had to be made which Westerners may find odd (i.e. TIFC).

I personally think its a huge risk, as a PhD should be something pursued not just out of passion but also because it will provide you a reasonable set of options after 5 years. As mentioned above the potentially worthwhile name-brand universities in China will be incredibly fierce, both to enter and succeed in, and local star-students may be strongly favored in China-based job placement efforts. Besides that, looking through the English language publications on some departments you'll see the quality is pretty poor. They may be stellar in Chinese but the fact is that on the global scale academic economics is a strictly English profession, and going to any but the very best Chinese university may be effectively walling yourself off from most of the options that you would have an advantage at relative to your Chinese peers.

For decent departments with good China research (including a large number of Chinese academics visiting or permanently teaching there) see... Brown, Toronto, Michigan, San Diego (well, they used to), and some of the Ivy Leagues (if that's feasible for you to enter). A number of British universities have good China research, although in general their placements can't compare with US universities; the same goes for a few Australian universities. You can also look through REPEC or NBER publications and see what institutions/professors the nice China citations frequently point back to.

[steveh]

Thanks for the information from the above posters. Not to hijack this thread, but going back to the OP does anyone have first hand experience studying a PhD in China (as opposed to more information on quality of English research)? I studied a Masters here, and just received a scholarship to study a PhD in China.

But to be honest, I am unsure if I am really willing to commit another 3-5 years worth of my time in higher education, especially far from home once again.

[icebear]

What are the research opportunities at Chinese universities and is there any funding? For example, if you want to carry out field research in China?

I just noticed this last part and wanted to address what may be a major misconception on your part. In general economists don't do any field research. They (empiricists) utilize computer modeling and/or econometrics on data that is available; if the data is not available they may seek funding to collect the data, although they would never be the ones doing the actual data collection - their education far exceeds the requirements for a job that essentially involves knocking door to door or making phone calls with a survey. Academic and professional economics is primarily a single location, office/classroom based job, until a more prestigious point in your career when visiting lectures and conferences may start to take an increasing amount of time (or, in the private sector, trips for presentations related to consulting contracts; a career which BTW does not require a PhD).

[honzan]

Thanks for the replies. I wouldn't consider doing a PhD in China without working....(I really don't wanna live on 2200 RMB a month anymore! or whatever the scholarship amounts to these days), even though it's technically not possible....apparently, you can only do internships with a student visa.

And yeah ICEBEAR, it's true that economists usually don't do 'field research', what I meant was, as you explained, data collection, i.e. designing surveys for either households or companies and then carrying them out with the help of locals and parts of it possibly by myself....or basically of supervise it.

Anyway, I'm about to finish my master's degree and did not apply for the CSC scholarship this year, maybe later, I'd like to start working in China next year and get some experience, possibly with a consulting company. As for economic research, I think working for J-Pal (Poverty Action Lab) would be great, but unfortunately, they don't work in China....

[honzan]

and steveh, what master's degree did you study in China? How was it? I was also thinking about that (doing another master's instead of a PhD), but I guess I'd rather go for a PhD. I am interested in Chinese-taught programs (or partly english-taught), though....was yours in English or in Chinese?

[icebear]

@honzan Typically large scale surveys are fairly expensive in the west, making them only feasible for researchers that can bring in big grants. I don't think PhD students often work with implementing large scale surveys. (Although they may be part of a team working with their advisor, who is.)

If J-PAL is your target I reiterate that you should only be considering top-tier universities, Chinese or otherwise. One reason J-PAL may not do research in China is that this kind of survey work requires a cumbersome level of approval and oversight from state and local governments in China which J-PAL may feel isn't worth the effort or otherwise defeats the purpose of the survey (i.e. some questions may not be permitted). (And then there's a completely other concern about the level of academic freedom in some subfields...)

[steveh]

@honzan. My Masters was a Confucius Institute scholarship in Teaching Chinese to Speakers of other Languages. The PhD would be csc scholarship in international relations. Both degrees are/were taught fully in Chinese. (word of advice, avoid Confucius Institute scholarship as its only focused on degrees of teaching Chinese, and there is the possibility that your scholarship is revoked if you dont rank high enough in your class).

The Masters was ok, it was kind of a joke compared to my undergrad in the states. Didnt learn too much, but thats bc most of the coursework was focused on being a chinese teacher. I wanted to apply for a PhD in Taiwan, but they don't accept mainland degrees.