Actor Zhai Tianlin’s doctorate revoked after he had made unproven claims
BEIJING: It’s been an embarrassing climbdown for actor Zhai Tianlin after his doctorate was revoked following an expose by users of social media. Zhai, 32, had claimed that he had received a doctorate degree from the Beijing Film Academy in June 2018, after previously receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the same institution. To back his claim, he had posted online an admission notice from Peking University, considered one of the top-rated universities in China.
But his qualifications were disputed after sleuthing users of social media noted that Zhai’s academic articles cannot be found online.
This violates a general academic requirement for graduate and doctorate students to publish at least two articles before they graduate, each of at least 3,000 words.
What was uncovered was a nonacademic article purportedly authored by Zhai. It was dated August 2018 and contained roughly 2800 words, 1646 of which appeared to have been copied from an article written by Huang Lihua, a professor at Huashan College, that had been published in 2006.
When a netizen asked Zhai on social media why his doctoral articles cannot be found on CNKI, an online database for all graduates in China, he responded, “What’s CNKI?”
This showed that he did not know about this website. Netizens then challenged him to prove that he had studied beyond undergraduate level.
After the online debacle escalated, Zhai’s studio published a statement on that Zhai’s articles will be uploaded to CNKI before the end of June 2019 by the Beijing Film Academy. But netizens were incredulous and suspected that Zhai had committed academic fraud.
The Beijing Film Academy is investigating the fraud allegations.