Papers published in domestic journals are related to local issues, making it convenience for scholars to get the current research situation and future development of some topics. Despite researchers have concentrated on factors driving academic output in domestic journals from different perspectives, they did not consider interpersonal relationships. This study investigates how the intensity of international collaboration affects academic output in domestic journals. We explore this relationship during collaboration life cycle which has three stages, namely, emergency stage, growth stage, and maturity stage. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of research funding supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Results show that the intensity of international collaboration improves the number of Chinese papers positively over collaboration life cycle. While it has no effect, a U-shaped effect, and positive effect on the number of Chinese core papers, the quality of domestic papers in emergence stage, growth stage, and maturity stage, respectively. The findings offer important suggestions for scientific leaders to design collaboration strategies with foreign partners, and provide an important alternative for scholars to consider international partners.