Description in Chinese

[Luis M. Chong L.]

The big problem in nowaday scientific research is that political and nationalistic issues has been too much involved in a field of human activity that is supposed to be on a bona fide basis.
Chinese-speaking people defend their supposed right to describe a new species or even mention a known species in their own language. If confronted with the importance and urgency of writing in English or Latin, they will quickly respond that why Chinese, which is spoken by one fifth of Humankind, could not be also used as a language for scientific writings.
Of course, they are right in some sense. But on other hand, they should also know that a scientific paper is not only intended for a Chinese-reading public. Instead, it's intended for people of all over the World interested in such a report.
Of course, there is a very high dosis of Nationalism involved in such an attitude. And, this happens regularly in the People's Republic of China, a country with a self-dedication to promote an ultra-nationalistic stance and a sort of revenge for all those years in the past when a weak China was subject to all kinds of denigration by the West. That's is also a political-motivated stance.
But there is something more scary regarding to the Scientific community in Mainland China. Many of the scientists, specially those in the fields of Taxonomy and Systematics, try to produce as many papers and writings as possible. Therefore, as a matter of convenience, they opt to write in Chinese, which of course, if easier for them. There is not a single dosis of concern for people that doesn't understand Chinese. Even worse, quite a big amount of new taxa described every year by taxonomists in Mainland China are usually invalid under International codes governing the naming of species and other taxa. Therefore, writing in Chinese is a better way to cover-up a taxa of dubious validity. This, of course, is a non-responsible and non-ethical way of scientic endeavour.
IZNC and other international organization in charge of supervising this kind of activities should enforce the obligation of using Latin, English or other traceable language (with an alphabet) for description of new taxa.

Luis M. Chong L.  (Coleoptera, Lepidoptera)
Lab. of Entomology
Dept. of Biology, CNSC
P.O. Box 30-250
Taipei, Taiwan, China

E-mail: lmchong at collector.org

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