The rapid surge in Article Processing Charges (APCs) has become a prominent issue in the open-access publishing ecosystem and has drawn widespread high-level concern. Recently, the Chinese Academy of Sciences discontinued the use of central fiscal appropriations to cover high APCs, in an effort to regulate fee-charging practices in academic publishing. Against the backdrop that China has become the largest contributor to APC revenues of international sci-tech journals, the policy of capping high APCs severs the channel through which China’s public funds flow to high-priced foreign journals at the source. This helps plug the “black hole” of China’s research funding outflow and curb the “unsustainable structural loss” in research activities. From the perspective of publishing policy governance, China’s restrictions on high APCs go far beyond the mere economic objective of “cost saving.” They relieve scholars of the pressure of chasing high-priced sci-tech journals, protect them against predatory journals, and encourage more prudent choices of publication platforms; they also embody the strategic intention of reshaping global academic rules and send a clear signal to global publishers that public funds shall not be hijacked by commercial profiteering. In this sense, such restrictions serve as a policy bellwether for China’s active participation in and shaping of a fairer and more sustainable new order of global academic publishing. As a policy pioneer in advancing self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology in China, restrictions on high APCs function as a critical policy instrument for regulating academic publishing order, guiding the reform of research evaluation systems, and promoting the high-quality development of domestic sci-tech journals. This paper systematically reviews the causes and industry impacts of the high-APC restriction policy. Its policy motivations cover three dimensions: regulating market order, aligning with the reform of research evaluation systems, and guiding the repatriation of domestic academic papers, all of which serve the overall strategic goals of high-quality development of the publishing industry and building China into a leading global publishing power. In terms of industry impacts, restrictions on high APCs present dual effects. The positive effects are reflected in promoting the transformation of journal operation models, standardizing market order, optimizing the publishing ecosystem, and safeguarding equity in academic publication. In the long run, these effects are consistent with the core orientation of publishing policies and conducive to advancing the standardization and high-quality development of China’s publishing industry. The potential risks mainly include short-term operational pressure on some journals, insufficient precision in policy design, and covert non-compliance behavior. These are phased challenges in policy implementation and can be resolved through the coordination of supporting policies. Accordingly, this paper proposes a collaborative governance pathway of “pursuing quality improvement amid restrictions and fulfilling complementary roles through regulation.” It emphasizes that the effective implementation of the capping policy relies on systematic institutional support across four dimensions: first, differentiated standard design; second, supporting funding guarantees; third, regulatory capacity building; and fourth, coordination with the reform of research evaluation systems. Together, these four dimensions provide references for improving policies for the high-quality development of China’s sci-tech journals.