Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday attacked former Academica Sinica vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) running mate, for alleged plagiarism in a paper he co-authored in 2007.
KMT caucus deputy whip Alicia Wang (王育敏) said that Chen, who was National Science Council deputy director at the time, had been “protected” by Tsai, who was vice premier at the time, and did not have to resign his post.
Wang said Chen and Tsai owed the public an explanation, given that former Council of Agriculture minister Peng Tso-kwei (彭作奎), former deputy minister of defense Andrew Yang (楊念祖) and former minister of education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) all resigned from their posts because of plagiarism allegations.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“If Tsai becomes president, is she going to select more political appointees of this kind for the Cabinet? Will she hold political appointees to a higher moral standard?” Wang said.
Former KMT legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) said the medical journal Cancer found out in January 2007 that a paper Chen co-authored with then-National Taiwan University Hospital vice president Yang Pan-chyr (楊泮池) and another doctor at the hospital had plagiarized other material.
Yang issued an apology and resigned, but Chen claimed not to have read the paper, Chiu said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
“Tsai Ing-wen really likes plagiarizers when she is picking vice-presidential candidates,” KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said, noting that former Council of Agriculture chairman Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), Tsai’s running mate in the 2012 poll, had also been accused of plagiarism in his masters’ thesis.
Tsai said that the Cancer incident arose from a citation error that the principal author made in the manuscript, which was discovered by the journal’s evaluating committee and amended by the author prior to the paper’s publication.
“If there was plagiarism, an internationally renowned and authoritative publication such as Cancer would never have published the paper,” she said. “The KMT has always tried to play up partisanship, reports of scandals and blackmail at the end of an election cycle. This is a bad practice.”
Her staff were aware of the allegation against Chen and had already investigated it, she said.
Noting that a Facebook account purporting to belong to Chen appeared on Monday immediately after Tsai’s announcement of her running mate, Tsai said: “It is better to act with honesty and integrity in elections. Little tricks like these are hardly necessary and with only two months left to go, I hope we can all work together to keep this classy.”
Chen also responded to the KMT’s allegations, saying “flawed sentence construction in English” was responsible for the error in the Cancer story and that he was “disappointed” that the KMT has “yet again resorted to negative campaigning.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique