"A bad reputation and cultural ignorance are probably responsible"

It's neither of these. A large percentage of Chinese research papers are fake and/or can't be reproduced.

"a ranking of countries by number of papers published in a set of respected journals."

Total number of papers published is almost as good as measuring a developer by the lines of code produced.

Is this true though? Have you verified this claim? Or is it stemming from... a bad reputation

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