China launches fully Chinese-owned open-access journal Vita and backs 450 journals with up to 1.5 million yuan a year

China is systematically building its own English-language science journals through a state plan, and Vita is the newest example described as a completely Chinese journal. Previously Chinese institutes and universities often ran English journals with international publishing companies, whereas Vita is led by Chinese scientists and published by a Chinese publisher, which interviewees call completely Chinese. Based on Nature's reporting quoting Vita's editorial team, TopEdit founder Ning Zhang and XinRui Journal Ranking director Chen Fuyou; this is industry observation and stakeholder comment rather than a quantitative assessment.

Vita adopts an open-access model that waives article-processing charges, using quality rather than fees as the basis for review and for attracting submissions. Most open-access journals charge authors APCs, but Vita explicitly waives them; co-editor-in-chief Li Dangsheng told the state-run Jiefang Daily that this lets the journal focus on assessing papers by quality and helps attract high-quality overseas submissions. Based on statements from the journal's editorial team and its co-editor-in-chief in a state-run newspaper; the report also quotes James Butcher warning that sustaining the model long term is a challenge and that whether funders will cover fees for foreign authors remains an open question.

The scale of APCs paid by Chinese authors to international publishers is one practical driver behind building domestic journals. The report cites Chinese Academy of Sciences data that in 2024 scholars in China spent US$909 million on APCs, nearly 30% of the total earned by global academic publishers that year; since March CAS has stopped funding APCs for 30 of the most expensive open-access journals. Based on statistics provided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an implemented funding-policy change, i.e. institutional public data and policy facts.

Government money advances journal building through two parallel routes: tiered grants and support for publishing groups. 450 journals are categorized into tiers receiving different amounts each year for five years, with an English-language journal in the leading journals category receiving up to 1.5 million yuan (roughly $223,000) per year; the plan also supports 13 Chinese academic publishers with up to 10 million yuan (roughly $1.5 million) per project over five years. Based on the report's description of the Journal Excellence Action Plan's funding structure and Ning Zhang's explanation that the government sees growing publishing groups as more efficient than cultivating individual journals.

The report is aimed at readers following research-publishing policy and open-access models, and is suited to understanding how China's Journal Excellence Action Plan, begun in 2019, uses state funding, tiered support and publishing-group backing to build English-language journals, as well as Vita's positioning as an open-access biological-sciences journal with no APCs. For readers wanting to understand China's path to internationalizing journals, the flow of APC money or shifts in academic evaluation voice, the report offers a policy framework and stakeholder perspectives.

The report gives no quantifiable indicators such as Vita's submission volume, review times, share of international authors or citation performance, so whether it can truly rival long-established journals remains an open question; the long-term financial sustainability of the no-APC model and whether funders will cover foreign authors' fees were raised by James Butcher but remain unanswered; the specific review criteria for tiered funding and the lists of journals in each tier are not detailed, so readers interested in those details would need the original policy documents.