Academic corruption in China's higher education institutions has become a serious issue in the last decade. This paper provides a critical discussion of the Chinese Ministry of Education's policy developments aimed to strengthen academic ethics and control academic corruption. It suggests that while the reactions of policy-makers to the apparent deterioration of academic ethics have been cautious and relatively slow, they are headed in the right direction. A comparative study of the policy documents demonstrates that significant progress has been made, and that the policy has undergone a change from what Anderson (1979) and Prunty (1984) described as "symbolic" to "material." Meanwhile, findings generated by qualitative interviews provide some insights into real-world academic corruption in China and indicate the complexity of the problem. Finally, some policy interventions are suggested that might be effective in reducing academic corruption.