The Evolution of the China Field : A Half-Century Bibliometric Analysis

To what extent has the contextual understanding of modern and contemporary China contributed to disciplinary debates and interdisciplinary dialogues? To provide an empirical foundation to the timely puzzle, this paper examines the patterns of knowledge production and diffusion in the study of China based on the bibliometrics analysis of 506,328 articles in area studies, history, political science and sociology journals between 1956 and 2022. It addresses a set of questions that define and shape the field's evolution over time: Who were the producers and vectors of this body of knowledge? What were the changing gravity and intensity of collaboration networks? What were the trending and impactful topics from the Mao era to the present time? From which geographic areas and through what methodological approaches were knowledge of China primarily produced? How did globalization, institutionalization, historical events, and intellectual ties shape the trajectories of knowledge propagation? Our key finding is that while the China field is increasingly productive, internationally connected and methodologically advanced, its contribution to inter-disciplinary and cross-national debates remains constrained. The structure of citation norms and the decline of China-based fieldwork also raised concerns over the field's resilience and growth.