Yilan Mayor Chiang Tsung-yuan (江聰淵) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday was accused of plagiarism by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), continuing recriminations between the parties in the run-up to the Nov. 26 local elections.
Chiang used the work of others without proper attribution in his thesis for the in-service master’s program at Tamkang University’s College of Business and Management, KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) told a news conference at party headquarters in Taipei.
Chiang wrote his master’s thesis on the ramifications of welcoming Chinese tourists to Taiwan, but 43 percent of the work was plagiarized, according to software that detects reused text, Wang said.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
The problems with the thesis include incorrect citation methods, she said, adding that Chiang did not write explanatory text in addition to a footnote when using excerpts longer than 40 characters, contravening university policy.
Chiang copied from eight theses published in academic journals or archived, four of which were not given credit, in addition to material apparently duplicated from internal reports of the Yilan County Government, she said.
Wang said she had been aware of the problems with Chiang’s work for a month, but did not act on it until the DPP began to accuse KMT candidates of similar activity in a “smear campaign conducted via media proxies.”
“If the DPP wants a bloodbath, I will give it a bloodbath,” she said.
Chiang’s thesis has 74 pages, 32 of which had words regurgitated from other people’s work, KMT Taipei City Councilor Chang Szu-kang (張斯綱) said.
“It is a simple copy-and-paste job that an elementary-school student could have done,” she said.
Chiang thanked the KMT for showing concern for his writings.
The research he did while at Fo Guang University and Tamkang University directly informed his approach to policy when he was a councilor and Yilan county commissioner, Chiang said.
The county’s promotion of non-tourism businesses, safety improvements to the Suhua Highway and other policies aimed at reducing dependency on Chinese tourists stemmed from his academic work, he said.
The master of arts thesis in question required collaboration with classmates, professors and colleagues, he said.
“We humbly accept criticism and will respect any academic examination” of the thesis, he said.
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