WILLIAM C. Hannas is one of the most provocative writers ever. He believes that writing systems using characters inhibit a type of deep creativity, though its asserted effects are not irreversible.

Hannas, an American linguist, believes alphabets foster early skills in analysis and abstract thinking. By contrast, he writes, "The rote learning needed to master Chinese writing breeds a conformist attitude and a focus on means instead of ends."

"Process rules substance. You spend more time fidgeting with the script than thinking about content," writes Hannas in "The writing on the wall: How Asian orthography curbs creativity" (2003).

Evidently, for a scholar advantageously equipped with the alphabet system, Hannas has made the most of his native ability at abstract thinking.

He also impresses us as eminently bold in bashing a language he does not truly understand, given his dislike for rote learning.

We must make allowances for the fact that in the Internet age, the most extraordinary and unconventional allegations have higher chances of being heard.

But a Chinese scholar, Dr Zhang Xuexin, has found it necessary to take up the cudgel on behalf of his native tongue, by writing a complex laboratory research report on the superiority of Chinese characters.

An assistant professor in psychology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Zhang tries to counter Hannas' allegations by marshalling evidence he has collected from cognitive science.

That means pages of quantitative, formally oriented empirical studies, laboratory experiments, data analysis, graphs, and more.

In his research Zhang finds that when Chinese test subjects are reading Chinese characters, there is intensifying activity of brain wave N200, which is less detected with Western test subjects reading alphabet-based material.

Zhang concludes on the basis of these findings that at the early stage of the cognitive process in reading Chinese characters there is a very in-depth visual processing. This is distinct from processing in an alphabet-based writing system, which is essentially aural, he writes, and his findings suggest the Chinese language to be at the apex of human cognitive development.

This effectively rules out the Latinization of the Chinese language as advocated by a very few radicals.

Not all would agree with this cumbersome approach of using esoteric neurological experiments in justifying the existence of one of the oldest writing systems, but stylized, specialized, "scientific" description has become the only way to create the sense of rigor in the prevailing fashion of "human science" studies.

And there is the incentive for academic advancement to which no scholar can be immune.

So Zhang's paper "The Centro-Parietal N200: An Event-related Potential Component Specific to Chinese Visual Word Recognition," was published in the February issue of the one of the most prestigious academic journals, Chinese Science Bulletin, in Chinese.

For a researcher like Zhang, who had been engaged for years in advanced studies at Princeton and Yale, a paper published in a Chinese journal rated "C" is really anticlimactic.

Trash papers

Why not publish in such highly regarded overseas academic journals as Nature or Science?

So the paper not only failed to draw the attention it richly deserves, but would not even "count" towards Zhang's teaching credits.

Without approbation from overseas experts, some domestic researchers in the field frankly expressed their skepticism about the paper's credibility.

Commenting on Zhang's dilemma in a recent interview, Sun Shijin, professor of psychology from Fudan University, called Zhang to be a "typical victim" of the prevailing academic assessment system.

There are many signs in academia of this national obsession with anything Western.

Meaningful research by domestic scholars has been steadily belittled, while research funds continue to fuel the mounting trash of papers in "authoritative" foreign journals.

As an example, Sun cites the research findings published in an authoritative journal to the effect that when exposed to a scene of a "Yellow" person suffering, a Yellow viewer would find it more poignant than a Caucasian.

In 1987, SCI (Science Citation Index) papers authored by Chinese researchers ranked about 27th in the world.

Thanks to decades of relentless pursuit of rising in this index, in 2010, China ranked the second in the world, after the US.

A number of academicians have pointed out frankly on various occasions that 85 percent of these published papers are trash.

But for a nation that has lost much of its sense of judgment in virtually all aspects of their life, this index, like the glittering GDP figures, affords them a steady source of national pride, and individual promotions.

In China a senior academic title is not just an honor for life, but linked to pay, pension and myriad perks.

As the fight for titles can be cutthroat, the number of published "scientific" papers has become a major criterion in deciding promotion.

The real picture can be more complicated.

A report in the China Youth Daily on Monday afforded us a glimpse into how these published papers can be skillfully leveraged to serve personal ambitions.

The report said that a couple of weeks ago in Sichuan Yibin College, Sichuan Province, it was revealed that of the 64 people who applied for associate professorship-level titles, 23 received them.

These successful candidates do not include some teachers known for their excellence in teaching and research.

Root cause

According to the publishing review process, published paper in academic journals, depending on the prestige of the journals, can be worth 1 to 12 points in promotions.

In actual practice, there is great flexibility in interpreting such papers, with some successful candidates having been exposed to have had papers published in "illegal journals" (unlicensed journals).

In fact, the single most important factor in deciding the outcome of these publishing reviews is not about the quality of academic papers themselves, but about good connections, which can be either fostered or bought.

Last year in the same Sichuan college, senior titles were conferred on 25 applicants, 11 of whom holding various administrative titles; some are relatives of school leaders.

Even doctors at community hospitals and primary school teachers today are busy churning out academic papers with a view to securing future titles.

We can safely conjecture that at community hospital or primary school level, the only rationale for the requirement of academic papers is the enormous room it creates for transferring wealth from those aspiring for benefits to the powerful who can confer them.