Is it common for Chinese nationals to turn down review requests? I am an associate editor for some international scientific journals. Unsurprisingly, I receive a number of submissions from Chinese scholars (working in China), which go through the standard peer review process and publication. However, when I ask Chinese researchers, working in China, to perform reviews they either never reply or turn down any invitation based on not being able to access files or external systems. This is not the case with Chinese scholars working in other countries.
This may well be just my own unlucky personal experience, but it seems to be a consistent phenomenon throughout several years already.
Are there any ethical implications of this? This is, publishing but never refereeing? Or is it that I have been unlucky for several years?
Your experience does not match mine - Chinese researchers accept reviewer invitations just like everyone else.
Statistics also indicate that Chinese researchers do perform peer review. As a group, they submit more articles than they review for (along with Indian &amp; Iranian researchers) but they also perform more peer review than any other country's researchers except the US (albeit not on a per capita basis).
See source.