Scandals lead to reflection on academics
Many argue that systematic transformation of country’s academic culture is needed. Xing Yi and Cao Chen report.
Plagiarism became a buzzword in China this year after Zhai Tianlin, a popular young actor, was found to have copied other people’s work when obtaining his PhD.
Zhai, 32, received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the Beijing Film Academy from 2006 to 2018. He was then admitted to a postdoctoral program at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management in Beijing.
The actor posted the letter offering him a place in the postdoctoral program on a Chinese social network in January. Soon afterward, some curious netizens ran a plagiarism check of his published works, and found 40 percent of one of Zhai’s papers was copied from a decade-old paper by a professor at Huangshan University in Anhui province.
The Ministry of Education responded to the scandal on Feb 15, saying it had ordered the parties involved to investigate every step in Zhai’s case and stressing its “zero tolerance” approach to academic misconduct.
The evidence was soon circulated online and confirmed by investigations at the two universities. Zhai was expelled from Peking University on Feb 16, and his doctorate was revoked by his alma mater three days later.
The scandal has sparked a wideranging discussion on the prevalence of academic misconduct in China’s higher education system, which many argue will only be cured by a systematic transformation of the country’s academic culture.
Han Menghong, a senior student at Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, said she had been impressed by Zhai’s performance in the TV series White Deer Plain before the academic scandal erupted.
Han said few actors in China have a strong academic background, and that Zhai tried to build a scholastic image for himself, through cheating, to differentiate himself from others. In doing so, he exposed the loopholes in the country’s degreegranting mechanism.
Chen Xin, a Peking University graduate who studied higher education, agreed. She said Zhai needed to face up to the consequences of his behavior, but he was not the only one to blame. The Beijing Film Academy and Peking University should also be held accountable, Chen said.
“An academic degree is social capital, so the higher education institute should not abuse the power of issuing it,” she said, pointing out that the Beijing Film Academy lacked supervision in granting Zhai the doctorate, and Peking University had failed to examine his qualification.
“I can’t believe that recruiters at Peking University couldn’t spot Zhai’s poor academic capability if they did their job,” said Chen, who works at a university in Henan province.
Li Yue, 26, who graduated from the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing with a master’s degree two years ago, said, “It’s unfair to grant degrees to those who plagiarize.”
Li said she spent half a year on the topic and structure of her dissertation during her postgraduate study, before starting to write the paper. The process included reading literature to get inspiration for her own work and discussing her idea with her adviser twice a week to refine it.
“Sometimes, I had to read one paper four times in order to fully grasp its perspectives,” she said. “The process is exhausting, which may explain why some people choose to plagiarize — it’s much easier.”
Plagiarism is common at universities, according to more than 45 percent of the respondents to a survey of over 2,000 college students and graduates conducted by China Youth Daily and the Sohu website in 2015.
It’s hard to say Zhai will be the last person in China whose “promising future” dims due to academic misconduct, but he is clearly not the first.
Liang Ying, a sociologist at Nanjing University in Jiangsu province who received the Young Changjiang Scholar award, one of the highest academic honors issued by the Ministry of Education, resigned in October after China Youth Daily exposed her secret withdrawal of dozens of her early papers, which involved plagiarism and duplicate submission.
Han Chunyu, a biologist at Hebei University of Science and Technology in Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital, whose 2016 paper in Nature Biotechnology once made him a research star, was found out by other scientists who failed to replicate his findings in the same experimental environment.
Though Han’s university claimed it found no evidence of intentional deceit by Han’s research group, the paper was retracted in 2017. Han’s various prizes were revoked, and he has not been heard from since.
Xiao Yanzhong, professor of political science at East China Normal University in Shanghai, said the rapid expansion of college recruitment has contributed to the prevalence of plagiarism, especially among students.
The scale of higher education has expanded in the past 15 years. According to the Ministry of Education, around 8.34 million students will graduate from Chinese universities this year, 140,000 more than last year.
“It’s not the old days any more, when only a few people could get a master’s degree and professors were able to carefully guide every student on academic writing,” Xiao said. “And graduates face mounting pressures from both job hunting and dissertation writing in the final year of their graduate study.
“But that’s no excuse for such behavior.”
The evaluation system in higher education also plays a part, according to a university lecturer in Beijing who asked not to be identified.
The evaluation of faculty gives more credit to a professor for the quantity of papers published than their quality. As for students, it’s mandatory for a doctoral candidate to publish at least two journal papers to get the degree, which is also problematic, the lecturer said.
“It’s hard to produce quality papers in such a short time, and the lack of a sense of intellectual property protection among students leads to them improperly citing others’ works, or stealing others’ ideas through paraphrasing,” she said.
The high demand has also created a market where people pay for ghostwriting and the publishing of papers. In an investigative report by China Central Television in 2016, a “cultural communication” company in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, charged around 1,000 yuan ($150) for a journal paper, with a doctoral dissertation priced at 50,000 to 60,000 yuan.
Chen Qiang, professor of management at Tongji University in Shanghai, said in a commentary in Jiefang Daily that society’s appraisal of talent relies too heavily on papers, degrees, titles and awards.
“That explains why an actor in the entertainment industry, which has little to do with academic research, would be interested in publishing papers and obtaining doctoral degrees,” he said.
Zhang Chang, a graduate from Shanghai’s Fudan University who is now a doctoral candidate studying political science at Warwick University in the United Kingdom, said there is a misunderstanding among many Chinese that a doctorate equates to strong professional ability, but in her view, the process of studying for one cultivates the ability to theorize and produce knowledge, rather than professional skills.
“It’s an intellectual challenge. I squeeze my brain for every single word in my paper,” she said. “But it’s fulfilling for me because of its originality.”
Insiders say Chinese universities can learn from their Western counterparts how to strengthen regulation and guidance on academic ethics on campus.
Proper citation has long been an essential part of academic training in the West.
Zhang said the first year of her PhD program focused on research methodology and reviewing literature.
“When we write a thesis, our adviser will criticize us for even a slightly improper citation,” she said, adding that an average student would spend two years writing their doctoral dissertation.
Now in the third year of her PhD program, Zhang goes to library every day from 9 am to 6 pm, reading and writing.
“Being a doctoral student is a fulltime job, and I feel discouraged knowing Zhai’s plagiarism got the green light all the way to postdoc,” she said.
Xiao, from East China Normal University, agreed. He said students need both regulation and proper training from universities.
This month, Xiao’s university opened a new course on academic ethics to all postgraduate liberal arts students.
Led by Xiao, 14 professors in various fields, such as history, literature, philosophy and sociology, teach the course, with students learning the principles of academic norms and ethics.
Xiao said he hopes the course will instill a sense of academic honesty, responsibility and credibility in students through class discussion, lecture instruction and case study — with Zhai’s case being one that could be studied.
On Feb 19, the Beijing Film Academy disqualified Zhai’s adviser, Chen Yi, from receiving new doctoral students.
In a public apology, Zhai wrote: “After I starred in a few films and TV series, I became full of myself and forgot that honesty is the most important principle … Vanity misled me, and I brought this attitude into writing academic papers … I am deeply sorry to my school, teachers, fans and the public.”
Graduates face mounting pressures from both job hunting and dissertation writing in the final year of their graduate study. But that’s no excuse for such behavior.” Xiao Yanzhong, professor of political science at East China Normal University