China Study Reproducibility and Investigator Effects: Investigation and Meta-analyses

I have produced a template letter to be sent to the department heads of all major independent and University based Australian, European, and US based China studies research institutes that produce research output about the PRC and CCP's handling of religiously motivated terrorism in Xinjiang and other provinces, and about the activities of the CCP in Western nations. The letter has already been sent to research program and team heads at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, The Lowy Institute, The Australia china Relations Institute of The University of Technology in Sydney, and The China Studies Centre of The University of Sydney, as well as researchers from Deakin University and The Australian National University.

The letter asks the research heads and research teams to:

1. Complete a simple Likert style (or similar) survey about their political, ideological, and religious dispositions and views, and if and how they feel/regard these views affect their research designs and the content and conclusions of their research.

2. Provide open access, in accordance with Open Science Foundation* recommendations, to any research designs and raw and experimental data, including any null results experiments, that have been used in any kind of statistical experiments and studies about Xinjiang, CPC activities in Australia and the West, or Sino-Western relations (especially Sino-Australian relations). (Collaboration, 2015; Maxwell et al., 2015; Simmons et al., 2011, 2018; Stroebe & Strack, 2014; Swiatkowski & Dompnier, 2017). * For more insight into the basis of the OSF (https://osf.io/ezcuj/) and the replication crisis in statistical psychology research, see the ego depletion and self-control debate (Baumeister et al., 2020; Dang, 2018; Dang et al., 2020; Friese et al., 2019; Hagger et al., 2016; Holcombe, 2016; Vadillo, 2019; Wolff et al., 2018)

(1) is to enable a specific set of studies of the effect of researcher epistemic beliefs, emotional profile (including conservatism and liberalism scores), personality, and political and ideological commitments on research output (investigator effects, or researcher effects).

(2) is to enable replication of existing studies done by research institutes to which the researchers belong, and tests of reproducibility of study results and findings of those studies, with checking for the effects of variables reported in (1), and additionally to test for the following factors (among others):

• Information source and source set selection and verification (including independence and heterogeneity)

• Adequate statistical power:

- Effect size testing and reporting

- Statistical sampling procedures

- Robustness

- Test statistics chosen

• Hypotheses (HARKing)

• Null results (file drawer research)

• Research questions (premises, assumptions, and biases)

• Research design (premises, assumptions, and biases)

• Methodology

• Frequentist versus Bayesian statistical approaches

• Quantitative and qualitative study parameters

• Quantitative versus qualitative study choice

• Mixed methods research design decisions

• Controls for mediating/interacting independent variables
  

Urgently Needed Transparency and Accountability

Given the current political climate and the seriousness of tensions in trade and political relations between China and Australia, and other Western nations, it is more than reasonable to expect that research institutes that claim to be impartial and independent should be prepared to have their research publicly scrutinised by independent research bodies and researchers. This is especially so with respect to the veracity, verifiability, and heterogeneity of their sources, and the robustness and appropriateness of their quantitative and qualitative research designs and methodologies (Hacking, 1971; Yousif et al., 2019).

The urgency and veracity of this set of responsibilities to public open science accountability and transparency are increased by the nature of the political and social memetic control narratives about China and the CCP that are being propagated systematically by Western research institutes and think tanks. (Belton, 2003; Benford, 2002; Bercean, 2016; Boswell, 2013; Dennett, 2013; Hammack, 2008; Hutto & Kirchhoff, 2015; Lischer, 2019; Löwe et al., 2010; Mcbeth et al., 2007). It is imperative that transparency and openness to critical analysis be maintained in an environment and context where the memetic narratives encoded by government and private research institutes can affect both gross public opinion, foreign policy, domestic economies, and the likelihood of large scale, dangerous, martial actions (Aunger, 2012; Bryson, 2008; Marsden, 1998; Masterpasqua, 2010; Sperber, 2012; Strand, 2005).

The Sino Western Research Group, and My Credentials as Research Director

SWRG is an independent and, currently, completely unfunded/voluntary research group formed on the basis of shared political and ideological concerns about the way in which Western narratives about China are encoded and transmitted. The group is comprised at this time of professional relationships more than legal frameworks (which is due to change soon in accordance with funding inputs). However, this does not detract from SWRG’s potential or efficacy. In fact – there is strong evidence that it is conducive to increased transparency, reduced overall bias in social scientific and scientific analysis, and general objectivity.

SWRG is not beholden to any funding source. Importantly, and as evidence of the true impartiality and efficacy: not all researchers involved share the same ideo-political outlooks. For example, my own very strong niche epistemological and ideo-political stance regarding prevalent equivocation on the concepts of religious bigotry and religious freedom is not shared by all researchers, and is opposed by some.

With a PhD in analytic philosophy from The University of Sydney, with specialisations in the philosophy of science and information (and with an MPhil in informational narratives in science fiction), and as a trained postgraduate psychology researcher: I am more than well enough qualified to fulfil this analytic research role. My specialisations are information and information source dynamics, the philosophy of information, cognitive science, information and ethics, the philosophy of mathematics and probability, the philosophy of computing and AI, normative ethics, the ethics of AI and computing, and informational epistemologies. I am also a capable statistical study research designer, and researcher, in applied and statistical cognitive science.

Analytic philosophy, and its subdisciplines and overlapping disciplines - the philosophy of science and philosophy of information - have intrinsic to them the intellectually and academically de rigueur demands of formal analytic argumentation, formal and philosophical logic, and systematised and logicised critical thinking. With respect to statistical quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research, The Open Science Framework embodies all of the necessary de rigueur measures, tests, and methodological disciplines required detect and remedy statistical research design and methodology problems such as p-Hacking, HARKing (hypothesising after results are known), and the file drawer problem (where null and unsupportive experimental results are omitted from research results and reporting.)

I am seeking funding and patrons, as well as academic collaborators, for this research, which is already underway and involves existing statistical research designs and academic research papers. If you are interested in collaboration, or in offering funding for these projects, please contact me at dr.buce.long@outlook.com .

Here is the letter template:

Dear Professor X,

Greetings...

I am conducting information theoretic, and statistical quantitative and qualitative, research into grey zone conflict and soft power conflict in Sino-Western relations (sinorg.org). With respect to the latter, I am particularly interested in the impact and effects of the psychology of polity, and of ideological and epistemic beliefs, of participating researchers and commentators, on the approach of Western research institutes/bodies and media to:

· The Communist Party of China (中国共产党) and their management of terrorism in Xinjiang, Yunnan, and other provinces.

· The activities of the CCP and its representatives, and representative bodies, in Western nations.

I am specifically interested in the formulation, construction, encoding, transmission, and presentation of political and ideological narratives in relation to the above. Myself, and another researcher in my team, are researching the relationship between different aspects of researcher personality, epistemic beliefs, political persuasion, and psychology, to different features of their research output and reporting regarding Xinjiang and the CCP's management of terror in Xinjiang.

I have also embarked on a project of replication of selected quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies to check for the reproducibility of results and to check the robustness and coherence of research designs and methodology. Accompanying this is a meta-analysis of research and research reports in the above topic areas.

I am writing to ask if you and members of your research teams doing work in these specific areas (the CCP’s anti-terrorism program in Xinjiang and CCP activity in Western nations) would:

1. Be prepared to complete a very brief survey to assess their political, ideological dispositions and their epistemic beliefs, and whether and to what extent these might affect their research designs, methods, conclusions, and reporting.

2. Provide access to experiment and study data, and design and method information, in accordance with the spirit and recommendations of the Open Science Framework, and specifically the OSF reproducibility project (https://osf.io/ezcuj/).

Yours Faithfully,

Dr Bruce Long.

PhD (Philosophy of information) University of Sydney Mphil. Postgrad psychology. B App Sc. Computing.