[Text/Observer Network Li Tianyu]
Is the doctorate degree of Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen fake? Recently, such doubts have been heard on the island.
The first person to make this question was Cao Changqing, a Green Camp "famous speaker" who has been labeled as "Taiwan independence" and "anti-communist". He was jokingly called the "Chief of the War Ignorance Bureau" by mainland netizens.
Picture from Cao Changqing’s Facebook
On June 10, he published a long article on Facebook titled “Is Tsai Ing-wen’s doctorate degree fake?”, mentioning that as early as the 2016 Taiwan region leader election, someone discovered that Tsai Ing-wen A doctoral thesis at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) appears as "Missing" on the website of the Institute for Advanced Study in Legal Studies (IALS).
Cao Changqing said that resubmitting a thesis is now a very simple matter, but 35 years have passed since Tsai Ing-wen received her degree in 1984, but she has never resubmitted or resubmitted the thesis. Especially after being questioned in 2016, Tsai still ignored this issue that was related to a major personal credibility, which can be said to be very strange and unreasonable.
Cao also attached two replies purportedly from LSE library staff.
stated in the first letter that according to regulations, all LSE doctoral dissertations in the semester when Tsai Ing-wen received her degree should first be sent to the University of London Library and then to IALS. However, the University of London Library has never actually received Tsai Ing-wen’s paper, so IALS naturally cannot find it.
staff also said that after Tsai Ing-wen became the leader of Taiwan, LSE made a lot of efforts to find this paper, but the results were "disheartening." The second reply from
showed that LSE had tried hard to search the records of its library, the University of London Library and the Institute of Advanced Law, but still could not find Tsai Ing-wen’s doctoral thesis.
A reply posted by Cao Changqing
Tsai Ing-wen’s personal resume on the Democratic Progressive Party’s official website shows that Tsai Ing-wen “obtained a master’s degree in law from Cornell University in the United States, and then moved to the United Kingdom, where she majored in law and minored in international trade at LSE, and was awarded a doctorate in law. Bachelor of Science". And marked in the academic achievement column: "The doctoral thesis is titled 'Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Actions' (Unfair Trade and Defense Mechanism), exploring how the local market can establish a protective mechanism in the rapid changes of the international market."
In response to Cao Changqing's doubts, some netizens posted "evidence" that defended Tsai Ing-wen in 2016: First, there is a record of Tsai Ing-wen's papers in the literature database website "ProQuest" in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Secondly, in the paper search system of the British Library website, there is also data on Tsai Ing-wen’s papers.
Records of Tsai Ing-wen’s papers on the ProQuest website and the British Library website
And Cao Changqing also responded to these rebuttals.
He said that in the Electronic Thesis Document Search Center (EThOS) of the British Library, although there is the title of Cai's thesis, the "Supervising Professor" column is blank. This shows that Tsai Ing-wen "never submitted a doctoral thesis" and never announced the name of her supervisor. How could she pass her doctoral thesis without a supervisor?
He also pointed out that the so-called "paper publication" on the ProQuest website is a lie, because the LSE's reply has confirmed that Tsai Ing-wen's paper has never been submitted to the library, so how can we talk about publication? In addition, in the era when Tsai Ing-wen received her degree, it took a certain amount of time to publish a thesis. For example, the thesis written by Wu Zhaoxie when he received his doctorate in 1989 was not published until 1995. The most important thing is that if LSE had published Tsai Ing-wen's paper in , there would be no problem of not being able to find it.
In addition, Cao Changqing also pointed out that Tsai Ing-wen, who claimed in her autobiography that she was "so good that the selection committee members of the School of Political Science and Economics were excited to give her a doctorate and a half", has only published "1.5 articles and half a book" from 1984 to the present. , respectively an English article discussing Taiwan's accession to the WTO and a Chinese article co-signed by Joseph Wu (currently "Taiwan's Foreign Minister").Even her so-called autobiography "Onion Scrambled Eggs to Xiaoying's Bento" was written by someone else (Liu Yongyi) and put her name on it.
It is worth mentioning that the title of the article co-signed by Tsai Ing-wen and Wu Zhaoxie is exactly the same as his doctoral thesis, "Unfair Trade and Defense Mechanisms." What is even more intriguing is that when Tsai Ing-wen published this article, she ranked Wu Zhaoxie’s name first, but her own name came second.
From this, Cao Changqing speculated that Tsai Ing-wen and Wu Zhaoxie knew each other when they were studying in the United States at the same time in 1982, and later had "collaboration" on papers.
He also pointed out that in the three years after Tsai Ing-wen was elected as the leader of Taiwan, Wu Zhaoxie successively served as the "Secretary-General of the National Security Council", "Secretary-General of the Presidential Office" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" and three important real-power positions . What is even more "suspicious" is that Taiwan ushered in a wave of "breaking off diplomatic relations" during Wu Zhaoxie's term as "Minister of Foreign Affairs". However, Wu's official position remains impregnable. Cao Changqing speculated that Tsai Ing-wen was Wu Zhaoxie's "iron backer" because if Wu Zhaoxie revealed that Tsai Ing-wen's paper was ghostwritten, it would cause an irreparable and devastating blow to Tsai Ing-wen's political career.
Cao also cited an article in the British " Guardian " in 2011, saying that London School of Economics and Political Science had exposed scandals about "selling degrees", such as the second son of former Libyan leader Gaddafi Saif ·The doctorate that Gaddafi received in 2008 was revealed to have been "bought" from the school. The scandal also led to the resignation of many school officials, including the college director.
Finally, Cao Changqing also gave Tsai Ing-wen's method to "prove her innocence":
1. Publicly publish her doctoral thesis, announce the name of the professor who supervises her doctoral thesis, and announce that Tsai Ing-wen boasted in her autobiography that she would be given "two The name of the professor who selected "Doctor".
2. Explain why he added the name of Wu Zhaoxie, the head of the Taiwan authorities’ foreign affairs department, and put Wu’s name first when publishing the abstract of his doctoral thesis in Chinese.
Green camp program supporter Peng Wenzheng , who invented weird "new words" such as "Taikan" and "Ancient and Modern Taiwai", also supported Cao Changqing on Facebook on June 11, saying that he had "done all the verifications." , the conclusion is "I agree with Cao Changqing's point of view." He also called this incident "the most bizarre thing he has encountered in 25 years in academia."
Peng Wenzheng Facebook
In the post, Peng Wenzheng mocked Tsai Ing-wen as "the most mysterious scholar" and said that apart from publishing the electronic files of all academic works, Tsai Ing-wen has no other excuse to silence public opinion.
According to China Review News Agency’s report on June 12, Wu Zhaoxie denied the doubts about his ghostwriting of Tsai Ing-wen’s paper on the evening of the 11th. Tsai Ing-wen has not yet made any response to the matter.
Cao Changqing's Facebook page is filled with highly consistent comments, such as "Cao Changqing slanders Tsai Ing-wen", "Cao Changqing is Lai Qingde's thug" or "Cao Changqing splits the green camp", etc. Some people repeatedly post the British Library's page and In 2016, the London School of Economics and Political Science congratulated Tsai Ing-wen on being elected leader of Taiwan.
However, some netizens said that it is not difficult to take out the paper and slap them in the face. There must be a reason for Tsai Ing-wen and her supporters to talk nonsense but refuse to publish the paper.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of Observer.com and may not be reproduced without authorization.
