Fear and Subservience：So Challenging to Demand the Truth from the Tsai Administration
United Daily News Editorial, July 16, 2022
More than 10 days after the former Hsinchu mayor and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taoyuan mayor candidate Lin Chih-chien’s double master's thesis plagiarism case was revealed, both National Taiwan University (NTU) and Chung Hwa University (CHU) said they had accepted the accusations and would complete the review and comparison "within two months". At the same time, rumor had it that some professors at NTU were unwilling to serve as reviewers. President Kuan Chung-min of NTU refuted the allegation and stated that the university would not be afraid to conduct a review. Professor Su Hung-da of the College of Social Sciences, who will convene the thesis review committee, expressed reservation, stating that the matter was too sensitive to make comment. If “two months” is excessively long for the review work, the attitude of the Ministry of Education is even more intriguing, claiming that the universities only need to complete the investigation within "four months," seemingly having no intention of revealing the truth earlier.
So far, including the two universities that awarded Lin’s master degree, the Hsinchu Science Park Bureau, whose intellectual property rights were infringed upon, and the competent authority Ministry of Education, each claim to investigate the truth to safeguard a virtuous academic atmosphere. However, from the perfunctory attitudes of their response to the case, compared with the determination of President Tsai Ing-wen and Director-General Chen Ming-tong of the National Security Bureau to shield Lin, it is not optimistic that the public will be able to get the truth of the suspected plagiarism in two or four months. In particular, with the increasingly intense year-end elections, every review step may be distorted as a political clash between the rival parties, and the final truth is likely to be shrouded completely in the cloudy process.
NTU is the top university in Taiwan, and it should have the greatest academic courage to dispel the clouds shrouding the plagiarism. The student association of the Graduate Institute of National Development, NTU, also issued a statement demanding the safeguard of the Institute’s reputations. The problem is that the incident of "government’s ruthless blocking of NTU Presidential election" from 2018 to 2019 has seriously damaged the soul of academic freedom of the NTU students. Including President Kuan, who gave up seeking re-election this year, and many professors and students who would rather back off and remain silent for self-protection and keep a distance with politics, because their prestige, reputation and professionalism could be easily tarnished by political mudslinging. Therefore, although Lin's theses dispute is so obvious, many professors are reluctant to serve as reviewers because they cannot afford the DPP settling scores with them at a later date. This is not to blame the NTU professors for lack of sense of righteousness and academic courage. On the contrary, all the while under the political pressure of the DPP administration interference in the last "NTU presidential election," people had seen many NTU professors refuse to submit to or compromise with the greedy and shameless political forces. In fact, at the same time that Lin Chi-chien's plagiarism cases must be reviewed, NTU is in the process of selecting the next president, the future prospects of National Taiwan University are as pale as the truth of the thesis plagiarism cases.
In particular, the determination of a thesis plagiarism requires a two-thirds majority. If there should be a slight irregularity in the composition of the review committee, the review process will become a mess. To make matters worse, once the NTU review committee determines that Lin's thesis plagiarism case is established, then his thesis advisor Chen must take responsibility for deliberately tolerating Lin’s obviously unqualified thesis, and the two will inevitably be charged jointly and severally. With Chen’s current influential position as the director-general of National Security Bureau, how NTU assesses Chen’s role in the plagiarism case is probably more of a tightrope game. The reason is very clear: Lin is President Tsai’s “favorite boy.” During the forthcoming election, the DPP will never pull its punches. At that time, no matter how upright the academic conscience of NTU is, how could it resist the formidable political pressure and manipulation?
Compared with the NTU, the pressure on CHU is relatively small. After all, the reputation and history of the two universities are completely different. Nonetheless, it does not mean that the public will ignore the results of CHU’s review of Lin's plagiarism case, nor does it mean that CHU can make a biased determination regardless of the school's reputation. Recently, a Taipei City councilwoman broke the news that Lin’s aide tried to pass instructions to CHU with the intention of directing the university how to help patch up the lie and exonerate Lin from the legal, contractual, and moral aspects. Although the concerned parties argued that relevant information was only "discussed" with the professor; but the thesis has entered the review process, and if the said parties did not instigate anything, the move was no less than an illegal collusion. If Lin wants to maintain his innocence, then why is he using such sneaky means?
This shows how difficult it is for the people to ask for a simple truth under the Tsai administration. NTU has not yet shaken off the fear of the government’s political intrusion, while CHU seems to be willingly manipulated. Under this circumstance, it may be faster and more objective to introduce "robots" to review the plagiarism cases, if possible.