Mayoral Candidate Swamped in Thesis Plagiarism Scandal
Summary report by Taiwan Weekly
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominated Mayor Lin Chi-chien of Hsinchu to run for Taoyuan mayor, but it was revealed that his two master theses, one at Chung Hua University (CHU) in 2008 and another at National Taiwan University (NTU) in 2017, are suspected of plagiarism. Lin and Taipei City Councilwoman Wang Hung-wei of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), who exposed his plagiarism, have gone to court, and file a lawsuit against each other. President Tsai Ing-wen expressed her support for Lin on July 7 and the “country machine” is now protecting him. The chairmen of the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) criticized the DPP administration government for ruining Taiwan's academic standards all for one person.
Councilwoman Wang held a press conference on the morning of July 5, indicating that Lin published a master's thesis at CHU in 2008, "Evaluating the neighboring resident satisfaction of some science park in Taiwan by TCSI", which was suspected of plagiarizing a classmate’s semester end project written in June of that year. She pointed out that the two papers are very similar. Not only is the content almost the same, including the charts, citations, appendices, even the typos are almost the same. Wang said that Lin plagiarized a public bidding committee in Hsinchu Science Park, which is equivalent to plagiarizing government property, and the circumstances will be even more serious than a general academic plagiarism.
The New Party and retired Professor Tu Chen-hua of the NTU’s Graduate Institute of National Development also accused Lin of plagiarism. Lin’s thesis written in January 2017 for the NTU’s Graduate Institute of National Development "The Political and Social Basis and Influence of Leveragers in Three-Person Elections—Taking the 2014 Hsinchu Mayor Election as an Example" copied Cheng Huang Yu’s thesis, a student who graduated a year earlier than him, the similarity rate is as high as 88%.
Lin held a press conference on the afternoon of July 5 and emphasized that the plagiarism accusation was a malicious smear during the election period, an attempt to destroy the reputation of him and his instructor. He quoted what Chen Ming-tong, his instructor at NTU stated, and emphasized that for his thesis for NTU, his topic, research objects, and conclusions are all different from the other person’s.
Lin also showed signed statements from two professors from CHU, Lee Hsin He and Ming Lang Wang, that states: "Professors all believe that Lin used his own content to write his master’s thesis."
Lin entrusted a lawyer on July 6 to sue Wang for aggravated defamation. On July 7, Wang also went to the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office to sue Lin for allegedly plagiarizing a national bid without a power of attorney, violating the copyright. And Lee Hsin He and Ming Lang Wang, and all who allowed Lin to plagiarize and infringe the state's works and plagiarize, are all being sued.
The KMT caucus of the Legislative Yuan held a press conference on the 7th, stating that according to the original outsourcing report contract of the Hsinchu Science Park, Lin’s master's thesis at CHU was suspected of infringement and plagiarism, violating the Copyright Act and asked Hsinchu Science Park to file a lawsuit according to law, and called on CHU to investigate and revoke Lin’s degree if necessary.
The KMT stated that although Lin held a press conference on the thesis case, he did not let anyone ask questions, and the details were kept secret. There are still many questions to be answered.
The KMT caucus of the Taoyuan City Council demanded that Lin apologize immediately, withdraw from the Taoyuan mayoral election, and demanded that the DPP withdraw Lin’s recruitment. The KMT caucus of the Hsinchu City Council also filed a lawsuit against Lin for infringing intellectual property rights, hoping to use the judiciary to certify his plagiarism.
President Tsai continued to support Lin on July 7 and commented on Lin’s Facebook that any supervision of the government should be based on facts, arbitrary smears for the sake of elections, is not the chaos that a mature democracy should have. This move sparked the anger of the KMT, questioning Tsai’s own plagiarism. Chairman Eric Chu of the KMT stated that both he and President Tsai were once professors. If a paper was copied from beginning to end, and he asked President Tsai twice, "would you be able to accept this?"
Ko Wen-je, chairman of the opposition TPP and incumbent mayor of Taipei, formerly served as a professor at NTU. He bluntly stated that if there is plagiarism in the master's and doctoral thesis at NTU, the school's reputation will be ruined. He even questioned how Chen, Lin’s instructor at NTU, could instruct 173 master and doctoral dissertations. The number is shocking, and the whole matter should be thoroughly investigated.
The NTU’s Graduate Institute of National Development issued a statement on July 8 without naming Lin, only alleging that the academic honesty case involving the thesis of a part-time program graduate is being handled by the school in cooperation with the academic ethics committee of the College of Social Sciences.
Lin has resigned as mayor of Hsinchu on July 8 and officially entered the mayoral election of Taoyuan. In the face of Lin’s involvement in the controversy over the thesis, the whole DPP is protecting him.
Lin was born in Hsinchu City in 1975 and served as assistant to Legislator Ker Chien-ming of the DPP for nine years. In 2009, he was elected as a member of the Hsinchu City Council. In 2014, he was elected as mayor of Hsinchu City. He was re-elected in 2018. In June this year, he accepted the DPP's nomination to run for mayor of Taoyuan and resigned as mayor of Hsinchu on July 8 to launch his campaign.