Different systems have different expectations. In China there is an extremely strong emphasis on 1st & corresponding author publications. 'Other' publications are not valued much at all, so this is reflected not only in how work is written, but also in how teams form.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
From 2016 to 2020, almost one-third of papers by authors in China had multiple corresponding authors — but policy reforms are expected to have dampened the trend.
