The Fraud Case of Prefessor Xiao Chuanguo

In September, 2005, the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) announced a new slate of candidates for her prestigious Academician program. Almost on the same day, an alert New Thread reader reported that one of the candidates, Professor Xiao Chuanguo (肖传国), although nominated from the Huazhong Science and Technology University(华中科技大学) at Wuhan, China, actually holds a full-time faculty position at New York University (NYU). If so, he should not be eligible to become a CAS Academician.

Other New Thread readers soon joined in to dispute many of the critical accomplishments listed in Professor Xiao Chuanguo's resume. On September 21, 2005, Fang Zhouzi published an essay in Beijing Science and Technology and summarized the major disputes surrounding Professor Xiao Chuanguo's credentials:

1. Professor Xiao's position at NYU had been an Assistant Professor up until recently (2005), not Associate Professor as he had claimed. Even then, he was promoted as a Clinic Associate Professor, not a tenured Associate Professor.
2. Professor Xiao's resume claimed that he had published 26 papers written in English. However, there had been only 4 such publications. The others are abstracts submitted to conferences. There were only 9 citations to the 4 publications he had, hardly a laudable record.
3. Professor Xiao claimed that he had won a couple of highest awards from the American Urological Association (AUA) for his achievements. However, one of the awards was given for a conference abstract and the other unverifiable.
4. Most important of all, Professor Xiao claimed that his work resulted in a "Xiao's Reflective Arc" procedure that is internationally recognized. In fact, he claimed that it was one of the very few procedures that were named after the name of a Chinese national. However, an extensive search of that term and its similar variations did not turn out any results. The so-named procedure could not be so recognized or acclaimed.

Professor Xiao eventually lost his bid to be elected as a CAS Academician. It is not known how much impact Fang Zhouzi's essay had had in the matter. Nevertheless, Professor Xiao launched a series of lawsuits against Fang Zhouzi and the media that had carried Fang's work, resulting in some very interesting, and even peculiar rulings.