Sustainable growth in China's communications field: Trend analysis of impact of China's academic publications

China's communications industry is an important part of the electronic information industry, and plays a significant role in the national informatization process. In 2006, China issued its National Plans for Medium and Long-term Development of Science and Technology (2006–2020) (NPMLDST). Since 2006, there has been a rapid increase in the number of citations of China's international papers in the field of communications. In accordance with the goals listed in the NPMLDST, China needs to overtake several competitors by 2020 to be among the top five countries in the field of natural science field. By comparing two Essential Science Indicators (ESI) (i.e., the total number of citations and the number of citations per paper) for China and other countries, China's annual growth rate is found to exceed that of other influential countries in the field of science and technology, and exhibits evident growth-type characteristics. Besides, our study also shows that the shortage of high-quality academic papers in China is the main obstacle to improving the impact of China's academic publications.