President Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) Harvard University doctoral thesis contains more than 1,000 errors that violate the university's freshmen writing guidebook, a report on the Boston-based Web site examiner.com said yesterday.
The news could come as an embarrassment to the president, who prides himself on his English ability and served as former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) interpreter shortly after graduating.
Ma’s thesis, which discussed issues surrounding the Diaoyutai Islands, was titled Trouble Over Oily Waters: Legal Problems of Seabed Boundaries and Foreign Investments in the East China Sea. It helped Ma graduate from the university's Law School as a Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) in 1981.
The errors came to light after a retired teacher interested in Ma's views on the islands looked up the thesis, the story said.
It reported that the retired teacher was so shocked at the “sloppy scholarship” that she spent a whole year studying the document and checking all the footnotes.
The results of her work turned up more than 1,000 errors, including misspellings, missing words, grammatical problems and misattributed material and footnotes, the Web site report said.
The report, by Michael Richardson, said that although the teacher had yet to discover evidence of plagiarism, “she is suspicious and continues digging into the paper.”
The teacher had contacted Ma's former faculty advisor, Detlev Vagts, to voice her concerns, the report said.
It added that Vagts, who said he didn't keep a copy of the work, told the teacher in writing: “Although I would like to be helpful with Ma Ying-jeou’s thesis my ability to do so is limited.”
Nevertheless, he assured the teacher that he had “high standards for approval” and was “fully satisfied that Ma Ying-jeou met those standards.”
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said the value of a doctoral thesis should be its viewpoints and contributions to the specific field.
The fact that the president received an SJD from Harvard was the best proof of the quality of his doctoral thesis, he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MO YAN-CHIH
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
A bipartisan group of US representatives have introduced a draft US-Taiwan Defense Innovation Partnership bill, aimed at accelerating defense technology collaboration between Taiwan and the US in response to ongoing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The bill was introduced by US representatives Zach Nunn and Jill Tokuda, with US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar and US Representative Ashley Hinson joining as original cosponsors, a news release issued by Tokuda’s office on Thursday said. The draft bill “directs the US Department of Defense to work directly with Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense through their respective
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
RSS