An analysis of the development of Chinese STM journals in the past 30 years

China publishes 5,052 academic journals in science, technology, and medicine. It ranks third in terms of the number of publications, behind the United States and the United Kingdom. In recent years, English-language journals have increased annually in China, but there are only just over 300 English journals published, accounting for about 6.5% of all published journals, whereas Chinese journals account for about 93.5%. Using 30 years' data from the Chinese science citation database (CSCD), I compiled statistics on the average number of papers, the average number of references, the language of references, the distribution of author age, etc. I also analyzed the role of Chinese STM journals in terms of their academic significance. It is observed that the average number of journal papers and references per paper has been on the rise in the past 30 years. English literature accounts for a large proportion of the references, and the authors are young. The conclusion is that Chinese journals are important for young scholars to publish their papers, and Chinese scholars widely use international research results for reference in their research.