Local Chinese Court Steals Money from Fang Zhouzi's Wife

One of the most significant fraud case exposed by Fang Zhouzi was that involving Professor Xiao Chuanguo, a self-claimed world-famous urologist. The case first came to light in September, 2005, when Xiao Chuanguo was being nominated to become an Academician. Fang Zhouzi publicly accused Xiao Chuanguo for having engaged in various acts of exageration in his credentials.

Xiao Chuanguo's Academician candidacy was then denied by Chinese Academy of Science. Xiao Chuanguo blamed his lose entirely on Fang Zhouzi's words and sued the later in local courts in Wuhan, Beijing, as well as New York.

He won his case in Wuhan, whose court issued a few ridiculous justification for its verdict that had become running jokes on the Internet, such as the definition of "international journal," the validity of Xiao Chuanguo's award claim, and a procedure supposed to be named after him. The case gained its dramatic status after Xiao Chuanguo published a foul-mouthed open letter of his own and hundreds of Chinese scholars co-signed an open letter to support Fang Zhouzi.

After losing his appeal, Fang Zhouzi has refused to obey the court order of apologizing to Xiao Chuanguo and paying a fine. The case seemed to have disappeared from public view, especially after many officials of that local court, including the judge in the case, were later disciplined for corruption charges. Fang Zhouzi had assumed that the case was forgotten.

Until now.

Messages posted by Xiao Chuanguo's well known pseudo-name showed up in online forums lately, boasting that he had received monetary judgement from Fang Zhouzi. It was not until Fang Zhouzi was alerted of the messages when he discovered that a sum of more than 40,000 Yuan (5,840 USD) has disappeared from his wife's private bank account. Upon inquiry, the bank confirmed that they transferred the money at the order of the Wuhan local court.

The unusual and stealth way that the court has taken the money both surprised and angered Fang Zhouzi, as well as many of his supporters on New Threads. Fang Zhouzi vowed to fight for this unlawful case. He explained that he and his wife have maintained independent financial records and his wife is never involved in his efforts of exposing frauds that led to his various court troubles.

Whither OMP?

In early 2007, the milk producer Mengniu (蒙牛) started selling a new, high-end milk product branded as Telunsu (特仑苏). It advertised it as containing a new additive OMP, or Osteoblast Milk Protein, which benefits bone growth in human body. It was hailed as a breakthrough.

On March 23, 2007, Fang Zhouzi wrote in a newspaper column that such a claim could not be valid. The term OMP appeared to be an invented name that did not exist in scientific literature. Even if such a protein existed, he said, it would not have any benefit as no proteins could survive the digestion process to affect bone growth in human bodies.

A month later, Fang Zhouzi learned from a patent application by Mengniu that the so-called OMP is most likely to be IGF-1, or Insulin-like Growth Factors, a well known protein. While IGF-1 exists naturally in milk products, it appeared that Mengniu is also using it as an additive to "enhance" the value of their product. Indeed, the Telunsu brand is selling at a much higher price than regular milk. However, milk with rich IGF-1 content could also impose health risk such as cancer.

As the Telunsu milk is steadily gaining market share in China, Fang Zhouzi's warning was ignored. For its part, Mengniu denies that OMP is IGF-1 but refuses to disclose its chemical composition. The company insists that it is a product of their own innovation.

It took almost two years. On February 11, 2009, the government finally issued an order to Mengniu to stop using the additive. The order stated that neither OMP nor IGF-1 has been approved as a food additive and their safety is not established.

Mengniu changes its story in an instant. It now claims that OMP is not IGF-1, but another well-known protein called MBP, or Milk Basic Protein. Ignoring its previous claim of its own innovation, the company now says that MBP has been widely used in Japan, America, and Europe for decades.

However, Fang Zhouzi insists that he has enough evidence that Mengniu's OMP is indeed IGF-1. Meanwhile, the Telunsu brand milk is being pulled from supermarkets in many major cities, although no formal recall has been issued. Mengniu's stock is also suffering major losses.

Yanbian University Takes Quick Action on a Plagiarism Case

Almost every day, people are reporting various academic fraud cases on New Thread. While the cases receive great exposure there, it has been rare that any of them receive serious attention by the proper authorities, not to mention investigation.

So, it is nice to see that, in one small case, action has been taken quickly and swiftly. On June 19, a netter reported a plagiarism case in a Master degree thesis at Yanbian University. Barely two weeks later, the school disclosed its its findings and confirmed the practice of the plagiarism. In its official announcement, the school resolved to strip the awarded Master degree from the perpetrator. In addition, his adviser received the penalty of a three-year suspension in advising any graduate students.

Super Rice Is Not Just Super Expensive

There is a new kind of rice on market in China. It is claimed to be super healthy. It is packed with superxoide dismutase (SOD) that consuming a cup of this rice results the equivalent of taking 4000 Vitamin E pills! It is also super-expensive: it is selling at a price of 30 times of that of regular rice.

The manufacturer of this rice, CEB Rice (德润生), advertises its product as a technology breakthrough that was originated in China and unique in the world. Their technology is called Cell Endophyte Bacteria (CEB), a microbe that live within a cell of plant. The company was able to create a new kind of rice, whose cells contain rich CEB, which in turn contains large quantity of SOD. The company claims that every kilogram of its rice contains 300,000 units of SOD.

Fang Zhouzi and others have been quick in criticizing the various claims of CEB rice. In a recent radio interview, Fang pointed out that CEB was not originally discovered in China, as the company literature has claimed. It was first discovered near the end of 19th century and then in the mid-20th century, all abroad. The two scientists in CEB rice, credited for their discovery, are both unknown in scientific community. CEB has been studied for fertilization and drug purposed, but never as a nutrient. There is no scientific literature on CEB's effect as a nutrient.

SOD, on the other hand, is a type of protein. As all protein, it loses its potent after being heated, which is essential when consuming rice. Proteins are also digested and cannot maintain their original effects.

If the company's claims were true that consuming a cup of this rice is equivalent of taking 4000 Vitamin E pills, then the result would be terribly, as Vitamin E overdose is very dangerous.

Facing the criticisms, CEB Rice has been unusually quiet. But as the sale of their expensive rice starts to decline, they are taking legal actions. Beijing Youth Daily reported that CEB Rice has sued Fang Zhouzi in court. The company spokesman is quoted as saying: "For so long, Fang Zhouzi has been judging our product based on his own knowledge. He has criticized us in many media outlets. He has also published these irresponsible words in his blog. We have been collecting the evidences and are ready to solve the problem with legal means."

Meanwhile, Fang Zhouzi claims that he has not learned about the lawsuit. He will decide whether to respond it based on the content of the suit. "If it will benefit the fraud-busting efforts, I will respond and defend myself."

An Interesting Resume

Professor Zhang Yangde (张阳德) has many significant titles. He is the leader of the National Hepatobiliary & Enteric Surgery Research Center (NHEC), the National Key Laboratory of Nanobiological Technology, the Institute of Biomedical Engineering of Central South University (中南大学), the Institute of Endoscopic Medicine of Central South University, etc. Through his leadership position, he has direct control of billions RMB in research funding.

NHEC has a web site that links to Zhang's various research institutes and activities. It also has an accompanying English version. But if anyone is interested to learn about Zhang's achievements and qualifications, he/she will quickly find out that the links to Zhang's personal information, in both English and Chinese editions, all lead to a "page not found" error. It's been like that since the summer of 2007.

Before that, those links proudly led to Zhang Yangde's personal resume. During the summer, Fang Zhouzi took an interest in Zhang's resume after someone reported that Zhang had obtained a major funding in nano-biological research through improper means. Fang found Zhang's resume more than interesting and wrote a series of articles exposing Zhang's fraudulent claims in it. After that, the resume disappeared from the NHEC site (but they didn't bother to fix the links). A copy of the resume can still be seen at the bottom of Fang's article here.

Apart of obvious language mishaps, Zhang's resume has some serious issues:

The resume claimed that Zhang had obtained a Ph.D. degree in the US during the period of 1987-1991. But it did not specify where the degree was earned. According to the same resume, Zhang was working as a surgeon and professor at Central South University during the time period. It did not seem that Zhang had studied in the US at all.

Zhang's resume also listed an impressive collections of Zhang's titles:

• Vice-President, International Endoscopist Association (USA)
• Vice-President, US-Asian International Exchange Foundation
• Director, Committee of Japanese Explosive Association
• Director, Committee of International Explosive Association (USA)
• Director, Committee of International Hepatobiliary & Enteric Surgery Association (UK)

None of these organizations seems to actively exist. They are more likely organizations registered with the sole purpose of boasting resume.

One organization that does seem to exist is the American Association of Nanoscience and Technology, which lists Professor Zhang as its Chairman. Interesting enough that here Zhang was listed as a person from the US, even though he lives and works in China. This AANST co-publishes a quarterly journal Nanoscience with Zhang's institutes in China.

Despite its official-sounding name, AANST was registered in the State of Washington in 2005 by someone named Hongbo Chen. The vast majority of articles published in Nanoscience are originated in China. The magazine boasts a big editorial board, most of them are Chinese names.
Fang Zhouzi carefully examined the non-Chinese names in the list and found a few are American medical doctors, engineers, or even real estate agents, who might have crossed paths with Zhang's previous visits to the US. None of them have expertise in nano-science at all.

Professor Zhang has maintained a dead silence since Fang's exposure, other than taking down his resume page.

Does Xie Huaan Qualify to be an Academician?

Every two years, the Chinese Academy of Science admits a new batch of Academicians, a pinnacle of personal achievements for those selected. On December 27, 2007, CAS announced its latest batch: 29 were admitted from 287 candidates.

It's the smallest number in years. CAS has a ceiling of 60. During the years of 2001, 2003, and 2005, CAS had admitted totals of 56, 58, and 51, respectively. This year's 29 is a very substantial drop-off. Either the CAS is tightening its standards, or the remaining talent pool is shrinking in an alarming rate, or both.

Nevertheless, in today's atmosphere of China's academy, it did not take long for these new Academicians to become targets of fraud-busting at New Thread. The first name to be reported is Xie Huaan (谢华安).

Xie gained the honor on the strength of his cultivating and popularizing a new kind of hybrid rice. His achievement here is not in dispute. But was it enough for him to become a CAS Academician?

A few years ago, the pioneer of China's hybrid rice research, Yuan Longping (袁隆平), who had far bigger achievements than Xie had tried and failed to gain a CAS Academician after several tries. The argument was that such research was more of a technological breakthrough, rather than scientific one. So, Yuan settled with an Academician position of the Chinese Academy of Engineering instead, a position that is regarded as far less prestigious and lower standard. There are also other such examples of candidates who had failed at CAS and settled in with the CAE.

However, Xie Huaan was the first person who had gone the opposite route. He had failed to gain an Academician position within the CAE for several years and turned in his application to CAS this time. And he made it in one-shot.

Well, that by itself is not such a big deal. Maybe the CAS saw something in Xie the CAE did not see. But much more damaging for Xie is that, he is reported as a plagiarist.

Although successfully innovated his kind of hybrid rice, Xie does not have a lot of publications of his own. Perhaps realizing his shortcomings, Xie published a journal article and a book recently. The problem is that the article was a summary of three papers published by others. According to Fang Zhouzi, who had looked at the papers, Xie's article "is not even a review, but only a studying notes" of others' work. In the article, Xie included data and materials from the original papers but never cited his sources.

"It's an obvious case of plagiarism" said Fang Zhouzi.

What about the book? It turns out the book was the work of a team of people who had worked for Xie. They wrote up the book as a collective effort, only to see it published with Xie as the sole author.

The real puzzle is that, before CAS made its decision, Xie's fraud has been duly reported to CAS. CAS claimed that it had conducted its investigations (but did not bother to publish its findings). Somehow, Xie Huaan was still elected as an Academician.

More Plagiarism at Fudan University

Looks like there will be more news from Fudan University. On the heels of its much publicized disciplinary actions, more plagiarism cases are being exposed. An anonymous author wrote to New Threads that a textbook by Professor Kong Aiguo (孔爱国), was entirely translated from David Luenberger's Investment Science.

Kong's book was first published in China in 2003, before Luenberger's book was introduced in China. To his credit, Kong stated in the foreword of his book that the material of his book came from lecture notes and his lecture notes came from current lectures from abroad, especially Luenberger's Investment Science.

But Kong's book did not just take the material from Luenberger. The book was actually a chapter-by-chapter translation of Luenberger's book, except that Kong omitted the original Chapters 5 and 11.

Meanwhile, Luenberger's book had also been independently translated and published in China in 2005.

There is also evidence on the internet that Professor Kong had coauthored an earlier textbook that was also plagiarized from Economic Growth.

An Academician Who Plagiarized

In 2001, someone reported to Fang Zhouzi a plagiarism case involving a famed Academician of the Chinese Academy of Science, Professor Yang Xiongli (杨雄里). In 1998, Yang published a review article in Chinese, which is almost verbose of an earlier published review by Eric Newman and Andreas Reichenbach, "The Muller Cell: A Functional Element of the Retina" in Trends in Neuroscience, 1996.

To be sure, Fang Zhouzi did a thorough analysis of the two articles and concluded that it was indeed a blatant plagiarism. Yang's article has 14 paragraphs, 11 of which were either entirely or almost entirely copied from Newman and Reichenbach. In the few cases that Yang tried to make adjustment to the text, he actually misrepresented the original meaning. The details of the analysis can be seen here.

Professor Yang did not respond to the charge himself. His students published an open letter defending his character and laud his achievements. But the only defense to the plagiarism charge they had was that the original article was cited in Yang's article, albeit near the end.

The case was never investigated by any authority. Fang Zhouzi raised this case again earlier this year when a professor from Fudan University, Yang's school, asked the public to report fraud cases. But he has received no response.

Earlier this month, Fudan University did hand down punishments on three fraud cases in the school. Yang Xiongli's was not among them.

Would/Could a clear plagiarism case involving an Academician be investigated?

The Plagiarism Case of Wang Mingming

In his letter, professor Stearns cited an old case in Peking University (Beida):

The penalties for plagiarism that you will encounter later in life are very serious. If you do it as a graduate student, you can be expelled from university, and you will not get your degree. If you do it as a faculty member, you can lose your job. I know you may not believe that, for the sociology professor at Beida who translated an entire book into Chinese and published it with his name on it only lost his administrative positions but kept his professorship and salary. But things are not like that elsewhere. When plagiarism is detected in the United States, it can end the career of the person who did it. That is also true in Europe.

Long time followers of Fang Zhouzi and New Thread know exactly what that case was. It was back in 2002, when Fang Zhouzi was just getting into this business of exposing academic fraud. The entire history of that case is documented in New Thread's For the Record.

In January, 2002, an article was published in a small newspaper in Shanghai, accusing Professor Wang Mingming (王铭铭) of plagiarism. Wang Mingming was, and still is, a professor in the Institute of Anthropology in the Sociology Department of Peking University.

The fact was pretty simple. In 1987, Wang Mingming led the effort to translate of William A. Haviland's Cultural Anthropology and published it in Chinese. A decade later in 1998, Wang published a book of his own in Chinese (想象的异邦). It was found that about one-third of this new book, some 100,000 Chinese characters' worth, were directly copied from Haviland's book. Wang's new book cited 120 references, but did not include Haviland, a book Wang had translated himself and then copied in tantalizing scale.

The accusation ignited a heated debate in the media and internet at the time. Numerous students from Peking University rose to defend Professor Wang. Wang's own Ph. D. students published an open letter defending the character of their beloved teacher and accused the whistle-blower for having ulterior motives in defaming their school, the leading institute of Anthropology in China.

According to a report in the newspaper Beijing Youth, the original accuser was ready to apologize to Professor Wang for the trouble he had caused. On the other hand, Professor Wang only had "no comment" to answer to reporters' questions.

Later in March, 2002, Professor Wang Mingming issued a public apology to Haviland, colleagues, and readers. The school decided to revoke his administrative positions and suspend his privilege of advising Ph. D. students for two years. But he had his professorship intact. The punishment was almost identical to the ones dished out in the more recent plagiarism cases at Fudan University.

Today, Wang Mingming enjoys the full status as a professor in Peking University. His online resume indicates that he is also the Vice President of the Association of Literature and Anthropology in China.

Disciplinary Actions at Fudan University

The year is almost over, but the Committee for Scholarly Standard (学术规范委员会) at Fudan University (复旦大学), Shanghai, had just released its very first announcement of the year. But it's a good one.

The announcement include the results of investigation and subsequent disciplinary actions against three separate cases of plagiarism involving professors, teachers, a postdoctoral scholar and a graduate student at the school. Two of the three cases were reported at Fang Zhouzi's New Thread web site (but only one was credited as such in the announcement).

All three cases were found guilty of plagiarism. The graduate student who was found almost solely responsible for one case was expelled from school. The postdoctoral scholar received a penalty of similar effect. All the professors and teachers were publicly reprimanded. Professors who have the privilege of advising Ph. D. students have that privilege suspended for two years. (In China, the privilege of advising Ph. D. student is treated very seriously, almost regarded as an additional professional title along with Professorship.)

For many years, Fang Zhouzi's lonely crusade against academic fraud has been frustrated by the silence and inaction of various authorities. It is rare, although not the first time, to see a concrete action. This came from Fudan University, one of the top institutes of higher education in China, is definitely a huge plus.

However, Fang Zhouzi is also quick to point out that he is still waiting for the committee to report on another plagiarism case he had reported. One that involves an Academician in Fudan. Would Fudan just punish the small flies and let the big elephants get away?

Liu Zihua: A New Kind of Astronomy

In the 1930s, a young Chinese by the name of Liu Zihua (刘子华) was living a lonely and miserable life in Paris, France. But he had a dream to pursuit. The 9th planet of the solar system, the Pluto, was just discovered not too long ago. There were much talk about the possibility of a 10th planet.

However, Liu Zihua was not an astronomer. But he found a unique approach. He set out to match the ancient Chinese philosophy, namely, the Yin and Yang (阴阳) and it's Eight Diagrams (八卦) algorithm with the orbit parameters of the known planets.

He had been doing that since he arrived at Paris in 1919. After much difficulty, he had found an initial match among the known planets before Pluto. However, the Pluto discovery forced him back to the drawing board, since the new planet did not fit into his original match. After a few years of hard work, he found a new match, with an exciting caveat. According to Yin and Yang, planets should come in as pairs. He paired the Sun with Mars, Moon with Venus, Jupiter with Saturn, etc. (Never mind the fact that the Sun and Moon are not planets.) As such, he found the Uranus left out all alone, without a partner.

To complete his match, there had to be another planet, which of course would be the 10th planet everyone was looking for! To fit his match, the new planet must have an average orbital speed of 1.65 km/s, density of 0.424 kg/m^3, and average distance to the Sun 7.4 billion km -- apparently the three parameters he had used in his match. What he couldn't do with his theory was, of course, to predict the planet's actual location or orbit.

In the Fall of 1939, Liu Zihua submitted his thesis to the University of Paris and obtained a Ph. D. degree. (His certificate seemed to indicate that it was a degree in liberal arts, rather than science.) He also published it as a book in French in 1940, and according to today's reports, caused a great excitement in the astronomy field in western Europe (the escalation of World War II not withstanding.)

Liu Zihua returned to China soon after. He must have tried hard to sell his new astronomy in the wartime China. At least one prominent astronomer, Zhang Yuzhe (张钰哲), published an essay "Do You Know How Planets Are Discovered?" to rebuke Liu's claims.

In the ensuring decades, Liu Zihua and his theory were all forgotten, buries in the waves of tremendous social and political changes in China.

But Liu never gave up. In 1978, he came out and announced that his new calculations according to I Ching indicated that the new Planet would appear around the year 1982. Lo and behold, the "Planet X" was "discovered" in 1981. Liu enjoyed a mini-revival at the time. But that soon faded away. Liu Zihua died in 1992, survived by his wife and a son Liu Shaohua (刘少华).

It was not until early this century, with the discovery of 2003 UB313, aka Xena or Eris, Liu Zihua and his theory became first-page news in China again. Finally, the 10th planet is here! Never mind the huge difference in actual parameter values from what Liu had predicted, "his prediction was shockingly similar to this new discovery!"

On August 10, 2005, Fang Zhouzi published an essay describing the flaws of Liu Zihua's theory and its absolute irrelevance to the new discovery. Using the Chinese phrase 欺世盗名, he accused Liu Zihua as someone who had tried to gain fame through deceiving the world.

The newspaper Beijing Science and Technology (BST) , one of the media outlets that carried Fang's essay, also named it as one of the "Top 10 Cheats and Deceptions in Science and Technology" in 2005.

In July 2006, Liu Zihua's surviving wife and son sued Fang Zhouzi and four media outlets, BST, Sina, Sohu, and NetEase, for defamation. They sought for 2,500,000 RMB ($312,500) in damage, an astronomical amount in Chinese court for such cases.

Xi'an Fanyi: A "Most Respected" School?

During October, 2004, a small news item appeared in several Chinese newspapers and online media about a ranking of Chinese Universities, done by an American organization. One such piece can still be seen on the web today. Rankings of colleges were just getting popular in China then, so such news wasn't all that interesting by itself. What was interesting, however, is its Top Ten list of universities: while the usual suspects such as Tsinghua and Peking Universities occupied the top 9 spots, the 10-th spot belong to a school by the name "Xi-an Fanyi University". Not many people had ever heard about that school by then.

What's more, the accompanying Top Ten University Presidents list ranked Ding Zuyi, the President of the "Xi-an Fanyi University" in the 2nd spot, right between the Presidents of Peking and Tsinghua universities.

Where did this ranking come from?

The news report said it was from the October 4, 2004 issue of Los Angles Times, which is certainly a reputed source. It also included an original English version, which perhaps inadvertently provided the first hint of something not being right:

Ranking of Chinese Universities by USA Fifty State Higher Education Union

　　The first list of most respected Chinese universities and their presidents was established by the USA Fifty State Higher Education Union through a survey. 80,000 questionnaires were distributed with 50,000 returned as valid. The event is the first of its kind in China done by international agencies. Noticeably, China's first private university Xi-An Fanyi University in the country's western province of Shaanxi has entered the top 10 list. It is now the biggest private universities in China boasting about 40,000 students in residence.

It's quite obvious that Los Angles Times could not have published something in such awkward English. The name of the institute "USA Fifty State Higher Education Union" also sounded fishy. Could this be another blatant fake?

Fang Zhouzi thought so. He was in China at the time when he encountered this "news". Without direct access to the Los Angles Times paper itself, he did the next best thing: searching its online archives. He found nothing. In his first report on this case, Fang Zhouzi was careful enough to point out that just because it was not in the online archive was not proving enough that the report was not in the paper. However, based on the English writing itself, he was confident that this news was a piece of forgery done by some Chinese people with sub-par English skills.

Although a self-claimed "university", Xi'an Fanyi University (西安翻译学院) is really a small college specializing in training for foreign language translators and interpretors. Unlike public colleges in China, schools like this one are "private" and charge hefty tuitions from students. They usually compete for the students who had failed to earn admission in the more traditional colleges and had to pay their own ways for a skill education. Not withstanding the successfulness or the lack thereof, such a school would not be qualified to be on anyone's Top 10 list.

After Fang Zhouzi's initial exposure of this "fake news", the school fought back immediately and provided copies of the certificates it had received to prove its authenticity. The two certificates read:

THE VENERABLE PRESIDENT OF
UNIVERSITY PRIVATE
UNIVERSITY IN CHINA

After a survey of American colleges, Professor Dingzuyi,
the president of Xi-an fanyi university is acknowledged
to be the venerable president of college run by the
local people in China.

and:

CERTIFICATE FOR THE FIRST STUDY-WORTHY
INSTITUTE
PRIVATE UNIVERSITY IN CHINA

After a deliberation of the colleges run by the local
people in China, Xi-an fanyi university is acknowledged
to be the first study-worthy by American Colleges.

It is quite interesting to note that, Xi'an Fanyi University, a school specializing in English skills, could not recognize the many mistakes in English in these certificates alone.

In the meantime, the news of the ranking was still spreading in China and made into mainstream news outlets including the official Xinhua News Agency and Chinese Youth Daily. A copy of the October 4th, 2004 edition of Los Angles Times was made available. The "news" of the ranking was indeed in the paper, not as a report, but as a paid advertisement. It was also found out that the socalled "USA Fifty State Higher Education Union" was registered in the State of California by someone named He Yumin as a company. The company was registered on May 26, 2004, merely 5 days before it delivered the "most respected" certificates. It is quite unlikely that the company had the time to send out 80,000 questionaries and process the 50,000 returns as it had claimed in the news/advertisement.

In December 2004, Fang Zhouzi's supportors in Los Angles visited the address on the registration and found the "USA Fifty State Higher Education Union" is no longer there. It probably never was.

But by now, Ding Zuyi (丁祖怡) had had enough. He decided to sue.

Wang Rui, One With Many Faces (And Genders)

In July, 2007, a netter reported to Fang Zhouzi that a Dean at Yunnan Nationalities University (云南民族大学) by the name of Wang Rui (王锐) has a peculiar resume. The resume was posted in the official school site but has since made unavailable.

In his resume, Mr. Wang Rui claims that he had spent six years (1997 - 2003) in University of Southern California (USC) under the Nobel Prize winner Professor George Olah and earned a Ph. D. in Chemistry there. He then spent a year or so there doing postdoctoral research. His resume then listed five papers he had coauthored and published in prominent research journals during the period.

What was peculiar, however, was that none of these papers listed USC as the author's address. Neither was Professor Olah in the coauthor list. Could this be a blatant case of identity theft?

This won't be hard to find out. Indeed, Fang Zhouzi's investigation quickly turned up the following facts:

1. One of Wang Rui's papers, published in Nature Biotechnology, is the product of a lab in University of Kentucky. The coauthor Wang Rui of that paper, is a female. Not even the same gender of the Dean at Yunnan Nationalities University.
2. The other four papers are all the products of a group from North Carolina State University. According to the corresponding author of those papers, Dr. Chen-Loung Chen, the Wang Rui in these papers is still in the United States and can not be the same person at Yunnan Nationalities University
3. Responding to Fang Zhouzi's inquiry, Professor Olah testified that "Mr. Rui Wang to my recollection spent maybe six months in my Institute on a Chinese fellowship in the late 90's. He never received a Ph. D. degree here or thus could not have been a post-doctoral fellow."
4. A search in ProQuest database showed two other Wang Rui's who had obtained Ph.D.'s during the time period in question. But their major areas are so different from the Dean's, they could not be possibly a match.

Therefore, it's pretty safe to conclude that the resume of this Dean at Yunnan Nationalities University is a complete fabrication. This Wang Rui most likely had never earned a Ph.D. degree as he claimed. His publications are stolen from other people with the same name.

Sadly, such a clear-cut fraud case did not seem to disturb much within Yunnan Nationalities University itself. Students in the school reported, anonymously, that their discussion of the issue in the internal BBS has been banned by the administration, and that Wang Rui continues to enjoy strong support from the school leadership.

Four months later, in November, a reporter from a local evening paper picked up the story. The reporter managed to get Mr. Wang Rui on the phone, who told the reporter that "not everything Fang Zhouzi said is true" and made an appointment to meet with the reporter. But alas, he turned out to be a no-show.

What Mr. Wang Rui did tell the reporter, though, is that he had since received a lot of phone calls from renowned professors throughout the country, inviting him to join together and sue Fang Zhouzi (presumably for libel and defamation).

The reporter still could not get in touch with Mr. Wang Rui and there is so far no news from Yunnan Nationalities University on this matter.

What is "Xiao's Reflex Arc"?

Professor Xiao Chuanguo claimed that the fruit of his research, the so-called "Xiao's Reflex Arc" or "Xiao's Procedure", is one of the very few world-wide recognized surgical procedures that are named after a Chinese national. If true, it is certainly a remarkable achievement worthy consideration of Chinese Academy of Science's Academician-ship.

However, after an exhausive search, Fang Zhouzi concluded that the terms such as "Xiao's Reflex Arc" or "Xiao's Procedure" do not exist in either medical literature or general information base. Indeed, up to today, a google search on these teams only turn up pages about Xiao Chuanguo vs. Fang Zhouzi libel case. Therefore, Fang Zhouzi accused that Professor Xiao Chuanguo had cooked up such terms on his own to gain fame.

On the web site of New York University, where Xiao worked during the period of dispute, it describes that Xiao "is actively engaged in pioneering research regarding creation of a somatic-autonomic reflex pathway for treatment of neurogenic bladder in patients with spinal cord injury." The term "Xiao's Reflex Arc" is nowhere to be found.

Today, we seem to know this much:

• In 1999, Xiao coauthored a paper describing a bladder reflex pathway in cats. This work was cited in Walsh Campbell's Urology, 8th edition, 2002. Xiao uses this example to show recognition of his work, but he never mentioned the fact that the cited work is not on human, nor did he mention his co-authors. More importantly, nowhere in Urology, can the term "Xiao's Reflex Arc" be found.
• The only occurrence of the term "Xiao's Reflex Arc" is in a Chinese textbook, edited by Xiao Chuanguo's thesis advisor Qiu Fazu（裘法祖）.

During the trial in Wuhan, the presiding judge ignored Fang Zhouzi's plea that the validity of Professor's work itself is not in dispute. The issue is whether the term "Xiao's Reflex Arc" is an internationally recognized name for the work, as Xiao had repeated claimed. Instead, the judge declared that since Xiao's research work is real. "Xiao's Reflex Arc" must also be real.

What Awards Had Professor Xiao Chuanguo Earned

In 2005, Professor Xiao Chuanguo boosted in his resume that he had won two big awards for his urologist research from the American Urologist Association (AUA): the Jack Lapides Award and an AUA Achievement Award. According to Xiao himself, these are the highest honors from AUA.

In his essay exposing Xiao's resume-padding, Fang Zhouzi pointed out that Jack Lapides award is not an achievement award but an award for an essay contest. Xiao did not provide the exact name in English of the other Achievement Award name, so Fang searched for recent winners of AUA's Achievement Awards and did not find Xiao in it.

During the libel lawsuit proceeding, Xiao presented his Jack Lapides Award certification. Although the certification clearly states "Jack Lapides Essay Contest ... ... Grand Prize Winner", Xiao continued to claim that it is one of the highest honors in the urological field, that "only the most world-renown scholars had won this award." Despite Fang Zhouzi's rebuttal and without further investigation, the Wuhan Court sided with Professor Xiao.

For the other award, Xiao presented a different certificate, indicating he was the winner of "Pfizer Scholars in Urology Award" in 2000. This is certainly different from the AUA Achievement Award he seemed to have claimed in his resume. The "Pfizer Scholars in Urology Award" is an award sponsored by the Pfizer Inc. and given to many young researchers each year. It is not uncommon for this award being given to outstanding residents. It is hardly prestigious worthy of "highest honor". What is more, it has since been discontinued.

In the Wuhan Court, Fang Zhouzi argued that this "Pfizer Scholars in Urology Award" is irrelevant since Professor Xiao had claimed in his resume as the winner of the AUA Achievement Award, which he certainly did not.

On this issue, the judge in the case pronounced: just because Fang Zhouzi failed to find Xiao Chuanguo's name in the past winners of the AUA Achievement Award is not enough evidence that Xiao did not win the award. Therefore, the Court recognizes that Professor Xiao has won the AUA Achievement Award.

Just like that, Fang Zhouzi was pronounced guilty for libel.

Wither "International Journal"

When Professor Xiao Chuanguo was a candidate for an Academician post in Chinese Academy of Science in 2005, his resume boosted that he had published 26 research papers. These papers were all written in English, he claimed, apparently to enhance their credibility. After an extensive search in publication databases, Fang Zhouzi concluded that, at that time, Professor Xiao had only published 4 papers in "international journals". The rest of them, Fang pointed out, were only abstracts submitted to conferences, whose inclusion as bona fide papers in the resume is one of Professor Xiao's unethical practices.

The term "international journals" is widely used in China, to distinguish publications in domestic ones, which are not widely read and generally considered inferior as credentials for achievements. It's not unusual for Chinese Academy of Science and universities to impose performance standards that included number of papers published in "international journals".

Among the various disputes around Professor Xiao's credentials, this one seems to be the easiest to decide. However, a judge in Wuhan presiding on Xiao's libel case against Fang Zhouzi has other ideas.

During the proceedings in the Jianghan District Court, Xiao Chuanguo produced a different list of his publications as evidence that he had published more than 4 papers as Fang Zhouzi claimed. Indeed, this list includes 15 papers, and apparently none of them were abstracts for conferences.

Upon close examination, however, these 15 papers are entirely different from the original 26 Xiao had listed on his resume. Indeed, there is no longer any conference abstract in these 15. But 9 of the 15 were actually written in Chinese and published in Chinese journals, in direct contraction of his "written in English" claim accompanying the original 26.

Nevertheless, the presiding judge of the case, Luu Ying, ignored this detail and ruled that since these Chinese journals are publicly available internationally, they are also "international journals". Therefore, Fang Zhouzi's claim that Xiao had only published 4 papers in "international journals" is a falsehood.

This peculiar ruling raised many eyebrows in the academic circle in China and became a running joke. Unfortunately for many, Chinese legal system does not allow the use of legal precedent. Otherwise there could be a flood of lawsuits by people who had lost their positions due to their lack of publications in "international journals".

In the meantime, the real issue, that Professor Xiao Chuanguo had used conference abstracts to inflate his original resume (which he had tacitly admitted by providing a different list in court), had fallen wayside and been ignored.

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.

Exposed Fraud Cases

How many fraud cases has Fang Zhouzi and his New Thread exposed so far?

It may just be too many to list. According to the most recent report by New Scientist, Fang Zhouzi himself has estimated that they have exposed more than 700 cases, involving falsification, corruption, and pseudoscience. Sadly, very few of these cases received official attention in terms of formal investigation and resolution.

New Thread maintains a For The Record (立此存照) column, where discussions surrounding major cases are archived. About 100 more prominent cases are documented there (all in Chinese).

Resume Padding Cases:

• Professor Xiao Chuanguo (肖传国)
• Tang Jun (唐骏)

Forgery:

• Ding Zuyi and Xi'an Fanyi University (丁祖怡和西安翻译学院）
• Wang Rui (王锐)
• Scandal at Zhejiang University
  

Pseudoscience:

• Liu Zihua and his Eight Diagrams Astronomy (刘子华和他的八卦宇宙论)

Plagiarism:

• Wang Mingming (王铭铭)
  
• Yang Xiongli (杨雄里)
• Li Xiaoming (李晓明)
• Zhu Yinghao (朱英浩)
  

Other:

• Mengniu (蒙牛)
  

(This post will be frequently updated with English summaries of major cases as they become available.)