Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] Currently, the scale and influence of papers published by Chinese researchers in international journals have been in a leading position in the world. However, there are still some challenges faced, including the imbalance between the scale of Chinese international journals and the need for publishing, the prominent phenomenon of paper outflow, and the limited international influence. Against this backdrop, how to grow from a major country in international paper publication to a strong journal country is a difficult point in the construction of the internationalization of academic journals in China. [Design/Methodology] This study investigates 284 international academic journals from the China Mainland indexed in the three major Web of Science databases, comparing the roles of domestic and foreign publishers in promoting the internationalization of Chinese academic journals. [Findings/Conclusion] Foreign publishers have played an important role in promoting the internationalization of Chinese academic journals, but domestic publishers are also showing a vigorous development trend. From the disciplinary perspective, domestic publishers in the natural sciences have formed a certain "build a boat to sail" scale, while the phenomenon of "borrow a boat to sail" is more obvious in the humanities and social sciences. In terms of internationalization effects, academic journals of foreign publishers generally have higher academic impact, higher international collaboration rate, and broader international dissemination range. Based on the research results, this paper proposes that the internationalization of China's academic journals should be supported by policy guidance, platform construction, and mechanism optimization. It is necessary to fully utilize the "borrow a boat to sail" strategy at the current stage, and actively promote the transformation to "build a boat to sail" in the future, in order to serve the national strategy of becoming self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology. [Originality/Value] The innovation of this study is reflected in the systematic analysis of China's international academic journals from the perspective of comparing domestic and foreign publishers, thereby providing a reference for promoting the internationalization of China's academic journals.

Keywords: Academic journals, Publishers, Internationalization features, Internationalization effects, Internationalization strategies