Is scalping airline tickets actually something that happens? I’d assume no since you have to provide the name of the passenger when reserving.

Yes.

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/fpdKM1iJBr0as6osJ2e0Tw

李慧早就决定回国，但是她两次订到的“便宜机票”，航班都被取消了。现在，她已经订不到低于4万元价格的机票了，有可能订到的机票，价格几乎都在“6万出头”。当然，这些机票都在一些黄牛手里，她身边不少想回国的中国留学生，都是通过黄牛高价订票。

Li Hui decided to return home long ago, but the "cheap tickets" she had booked twice had their flights cancelled. Now, she can't find any ticket with a price of less than 40,000 yuan. The tickets she might be able to book are almost all from 60,000 upwards. Of course, these tickets are in the hands of some scalpers. Many Chinese students around her who want to return to China are booking high-price tickets through scalpers.

Doesn’t sound correct. If an airline cancels a flight, they will generally reschedule you for the next possible flight.

The article is from June. Those were flights she had booked in February/April for May/June. They got canceled because of the pandemic. Same for the next flight. And all others after that. The airline couldn't reschedule her for the next flight because it wasn't flying.

Airlines don't follow SOP when they are on the verge of bankruptcy and needs $ any way it can.

I've changed the name in the ticket after the fact and it hasn't been a problem. They do it for national security purposes, not to prevent scalping.

That's very rare on low priced tickets. Are low priced tickets a national security threat?