Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) yesterday confirmed that he had received an official notice from National Taiwan University’s (NTU) College of Social Science of its decision to revoke his master’s degree and said that he respected the decision.
During the campaign for the nine-in-one elections, New Party Taoyuan mayoral candidate You Chih-pin (游智彬) alleged that Cheng had plagiarized his master’s degree thesis for NTU’s Graduate Institute for National Development.
Cheng said that the institute did not require that students use plagiarism checker programs, adding that he had successfully defended his paper before a panel of three professors on how the democratization of the Chinese public would not lead to a governmental change to democracy.
Photo: CNA
At the time of the study, conducting empirical studies on the topic was impossible, Cheng said, adding that he had instead performed an analysis of existing literature.
Cheng said he stood by his statements to the university’s Research Ethics Committee that his thesis was original and that the lack of citation was an oversight, not plagiarism.
Cheng said that had the institute mandated students use plagiarism-checker programs, he would have found out about the missed citation and would have provided the proper footnotes.
He said that he did not have time to verify all his sources, adding that he did not have some of the documents on hand at the moment to note down his citations.
Cheng said he was sorry for the oversight, but he had no intention of plagiarizing.
The lack of citations does not take away from the originality of his research, he said.
NTU yesterday confirmed that it had concluded its investigation into the matter, but declined to reveal its results.
The university said that its investigation followed all relevant regulations, adding that they already notified Cheng of the results.
The university will not let standards slide on academic ethics, it said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS