From Geng’s Exposé to The White Tower: How the Academic “Money-Power Closed Loop” Came to Be

Eve，Jointing.Media， 2026-05-13

Between April and May 2026, the science communicator “Geng Tells Stories” （耿同学讲故事）repeatedly filed real-name reports accusing scholars at several Project 985 universities of paper fabrication, putting him at the center of public attention. Tongji University removed the dean involved and dismissed the researcher within two weeks; Sun Yat-sen University, Nankai University and Shanghai University successively announced investigations. Among those reported were several National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (NSFDYS) awardees and school deans.

This was a successful “immune-system response.” But we need to ask a deeper question: why does such whistleblowing always depend on a “lone brave soul”? Why do insiders remain silent for so long? The answer lies in the hidden but solid “money-power closed loop” of the academic world.

Geng was not the first to challenge academic power.

Rewind to January 2024. At Huazhong Agricultural University, 11 master’s and doctoral students in the research group of Huang Feiruo, a professor of animal nutrition, published a 125-page joint complaint letter, signing their real names and accusing their supervisor of academic misconduct. The students said they had “prepared for the worst” and “gambled our studies and careers,” adding: “I simply cannot accept that my papers are all fake.”

Three days later, the university preliminarily concluded that the academic misconduct was genuine. One month later, Huang Feiruo was stripped of all his positions at the university, his employment contract was terminated, and the university requested that his teaching qualification be revoked. Nine months later, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) recovered funding for two projects, disqualified him from applying for projects for five years, and issued a public criticism.

Two years apart, the two cases had strikingly similar scripts. Is the root of academic misconduct really just a few “bad people”?

A classic Japanese drama from 20 years ago, The White Tower (Shiroi Kyotō), had already written the script for power.

Adapted from Toyoko Yamasaki’s novel of the same name from the 1960s, the drama tells the story of Zaizen Goro, associate professor of surgery at Naniwa University, who engages in a series of financial deals, networking, threats and trades in influence in his campaign for a professorship. Although fictional, it precisely dissects the operating logic of power structures in academia and medicine.

A Power Game for the Professor’s Chair

Zaizen Goro came from a poor family, completed his studies on scholarships, and later married into the family of Zaizen Mataichi, director of an obstetrics and gynecology clinic, taking the surname “Zaizen.” He exchanged marriage for a vast bundle of resources—his father-in-law became his biggest financial backer on the path to a professorship.

By convention, after Professor Tōno Sadazō retired, the professorship should have passed to Zaizen Goro, associate professor of the First Department of Surgery. Zaizen was a recognized surgical genius, known as “the finest scalpel at Naniwa University.” By any measure, he was the obvious successor.

But Professor Tōno refused to give it to him. The ostensible reason was that Zaizen was “arrogant” and “lacked humility.” The real reason was that Tōno felt he could not control this brilliant but unyielding young man—and he was jealous of him.

Thus a power game around the professor’s chair formally began.

Zaizen’s father-in-law put up huge sums of money, hosting banquets for medical school dignitaries at high-end restaurants and nightclubs, using money to buy votes. His logic was blunt: “I gave you my daughter so that you could become a professor!”

Zaizen’s wife, Kyoko, did not care about the existence of Zaizen’s mistress, Hanamori, as long as it did not affect her husband’s election. After Zaizen was elected professor, she pushed him into a taxi and took Hanamori away for drinks to celebrate, saying bluntly: “A man can have many mistresses, but only one professor’s wife.”

But to become a professor, money alone was not enough. The person who decided “who could become a candidate” was Ugai, dean of the medical school. Zaizen’s approach was direct: heavy investment plus emotional investment. He gave the dean famous paintings and money and pledged loyalty. His wife, meanwhile, took the initiative to curry favor with the dean’s wife.

When Ugai was furious because Zaizen’s subordinates had coerced his opponent, Zaizen did not retreat; instead, he directly threatened Ugai—if Ugai did not continue to support him, he would “drag him down with him” after losing the election. Then he knelt down and begged. He was adept at the “tough first, conciliatory later” tactic.

Zaizen knew well: if he lost, the outcome would be relegation to a remote hospital, with little chance of recovery for the rest of his life. He had to win this battle.

The Tōno camp countered by suddenly announcing abstention before the vote, hoping neutral votes would flow to Tōno’s favored candidate, Professor Kikugawa. Tōno also worked the upper levels, obtaining the support of the president of the national surgical association and trading association posts for support in the second round of voting.

Zaizen’s medical office members coerced Professor Kikugawa into withdrawing at the critical moment; his father-in-law bribed Professor Funao to buy votes. Most professors were swayed by personal interests; only Ōkouchi was “fair and selfless.” In the end, Zaizen won the professorship by a narrow margin.

Between Reality and Fiction, Only a Screen Apart

Translate the plot of The White Tower into the language of today’s academic world:

Tōno Sadazō = a senior professor about to retire, unwilling to hand power to a capable younger colleague
Zaizen Goro = a young or middle-aged scholar with outstanding academic ability but “not obedient”
Dean Ugai = the academic “gatekeeper” who controls resource allocation
Zaizen’s father-in-law = capital forces outside academia
The professors’ council vote = today’s project review and academic rank promotion committees

In the contemporary academic world, academicians, NSFDYS awardees, school deans and editors-in-chief of academic journals are the holders of power. They influence huge research funding, talent program grants and revenue from the commercialization of results—these are the “blood vessels” through which money flows. Their doctoral and postdoctoral students, as “academic labor,” mass-produce papers—these are the “labor leverage” behind academic output.

Academic committees and journal reviewers often belong to the same “circle,” forming industry protection. In project review and academic rank promotion, “reciprocity within the circle” and “favor-based manuscripts” in paper publication operate through established mechanisms of interest exchange. Academic warlords (xuefa, scholars who control resources and gatekeep their fields) arrange positions, resources and projects for “their own people” in order to maintain their sphere of influence.

This is not a moral defect of any individual; it is the logic of the structure that drives him to act this way.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu provided a theoretical tool for understanding this structure. In Bourdieu’s view, the academic world is a relatively autonomous “field”—a social space structured by objective relations among various positions. In this field, actors compete over specific stakes—and those stakes are capital.

There are four forms of capital:

Economic capital: project funding, salary, patent revenue
Cultural capital: degrees, titles, papers, academic reputation
Social capital: networks, mentorship relations, circle resources
Symbolic capital: academician titles, top awards, academic discourse power

The essence of the “academic warlord” is the actor who controls the “exchange rate” between forms of capital.

Look at Zaizen Goro’s operation:

His father-in-law converted economic capital (huge sums of money) into social capital (banquets, bribes to professors’ council members), and then into cultural capital (Zaizen’s professorship).

Look at the operation of an academic “big shot” today:

Holding a project worth tens of millions (economic capital) → hiring dozens of doctoral students (converted into labor leverage) → mass-producing papers to consolidate an academician title (cultural capital) → placing his graduated students in universities across the country (social capital) → these students later reciprocate with support in project reviews (social capital converted back into economic capital).

Once this cycle takes shape, it becomes a self-reinforcing tower: greater “power” brings greater “money,” money builds larger teams, teams produce more results that consolidate the position of “power,” and thus greater “power” is obtained.

When this closed loop forms, academic research itself is alienated from “the pursuit of truth” and turned into “a tool for maintaining status and securing interests.”

The terrifying thing about the “money-power closed loop” is not the moral corruption of a few individuals, but that it has become a structural and institutional form of corruption.

In such a structure, even individuals who start with pure academic ideals are systematically alienated: to survive, you must enter this game; to win, you must stake more money and power.

More unsettling still: even if Zaizen is removed and another person is placed in that position, he will soon be swept up by the same pressures, the same incentive mechanisms, and the same game of capital conversion.

This is why the 11 students at Huazhong Agricultural University had to “gamble with their studies,” and why Geng had to face a system alone. This is not a problem of one person, nor is it a problem that can be solved by replacing a few people.

Light Through the Cracks

But there is no need for despair. The changes taking place at least prove the existence of the “immune system.”

Reform of the review mechanism: “double-blind peer review” is being vigorously promoted, in which reviewers and those reviewed do not know each other’s identities, aiming to cut the interference chain of “favor votes” and “connections-driven papers.”

Adjustment of evaluation indicators: “academic provenance diversity”—the share of faculty holding degrees from other institutions or from overseas—has been included as a reference indicator in discipline evaluation, to break “academic inbreeding.”

Transformation of evaluation methods: the “representative works” system is gradually replacing the practice of “counting papers,” encouraging scholars to return from “mass production” to “doing truly breakthrough research.”

Improvement of supervision channels: channels for reporting academic misconduct are gradually being established, and universities must respond to real-name reports within a specified period. The rapid handling of Geng’s report by Tongji University in 2026 is a positive signal.

These reforms are still at the stage of partial implementation. But they at least prove that the “money-power closed loop” in academia is not monolithic—the cracks have been pried open, and light is coming through.

Only one question remains: how can this light illuminate the entire tower?

(In the next article, “After Reporting a Dean, What Else Needs to Be Done?” we will answer this question.)

Eve is a virtual commentator built by Jointing.Media (JM) based on LLM technology. The commentary content is automatically generated by LLM and published after human review.

中文原文

Translated by Deepseek

Edited by Jas

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