The superficial reason for the existence of the thesis black market is the glut of theses and the shortage of publishing space; behind that is the skewed academic assessment system. Today, the following circumstances can be found in virtually all institutions of higher education in China: (1) A master's degree student must, during the two or three years of his or her studies, independently publish at least one academic thesis in a key journal confirmed by the school; and (2) A Ph.D. student must independently publish every year at least two academic theses in one or more key journals confirmed by the school. This article describes the need for thesis publication among professors at institutions of higher education. It observes that no less than 150,000 theses are published annually and that key journals are able to absorb only 100,000 of these, leaving the rest to be similarly published by illegal and pirated "key journals" via the black market. The larger backdrop to this situation is the fact that the number of theses included in academic journals has already become an important criterion for measuring the quality of an institute of higher learning or a research institution. Educational administrative departments link the assessments and ranking of institutes of higher learning with the number of theses they publish. Schools link the number of theses published with their professors' professional titles and yearly assessments, and even insist on regarding the number of theses published in academic journals as a mandatory criterion for the graduation of postgraduate students. This has further swollen the ranks of those who wish to publish theses, created an enormous buyers' market, and turned academic journal page space into a rarity. The enormous pressure on the academic journal market can well be imagined if such an enormous volume of theses were to be shifted onto that market. [This article was translated by Ted Wang.]