Chinese Scientist Admits To Stealing Chip Research

An anonymous reader writes "A prominent Chinese scientist, one of the founders of the chip manufacturing industry in the country, has admitted to stealing his research." From the article: "Chen Jin, a dean of Shanghai's prestigious Jiaotong University and the leader of a government-funded high-tech research project, was dismissed from his university posts this week and stripped of other government titles and perks. The government also said that Chen had been permanently banned from taking part in any government-funded science projects. In a statement Friday, Jiaotong University--one of the nation's elite schools--said, 'Chen Jin has breached the trust of being a scientist and educator. His behavior is despicable.'"

Comments

Hmm...

[Xshare]

What are the chances that this guy just did something against the Chinese Government's wishes, and so they faked this whole scandal. I mean, TFA makes it seem like the Government is in this a lot more than the blurb makes it seem so.

Meh, maybe I'm just too paranoid. Anyone know more about this? Is that a possibility?

Re:Hmm...

[posdnous]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-03/1 5/content_536821.htm

Plagiarism, fake research plague academia
By Zhu Zhe (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-03-15 05:39

As China marks the World Consumer Rights Day today, the spotlight would inevitably be on poor products and shoddy service.

But attention is also being focused on the rights of a special group of consumers: subscribers or readers of academic journals.

Plagiarism and fake research have become rampant in China, and are eroding people's trust in academia, Ren Yuing, a member of the Councillors' Office of the State Council, told the recent meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top advisory body.

He cited a recent survey of 180 PhD degree holders, of whom 60 per cent paid to be published in academic journals; and about the same percentage copied others' work.

"The situation exists in almost every well-known Chinese university," He Weifang, a professor at Peking University's law school, told China Daily. He is also an activist in fighting what he called academic corruption.

Some 100 Chinese professors plan to publish an open letter calling for the establishment of a national supervision mechanism to root out academic plagiarism. The move follows a series of academic scandals:

Qiu Xiaoqing, a biomedicine professor at Sichuan University, was last year accused of publishing fraudulent research in the November 2003 issue of Nature Biotechnology.

Zhou Yezhong, a professor at Wuhan University's law school, was last December accused of copying others' work "word for word."

Shen Luwei, an associate professor at Tianjin Foreign Studies University, was removed from his post in January for plagiarizing 10 articles in his book.

He Weifang said he felt obliged to sign the open letter as the problem has been holding back the country's scientific development.

Academic corruption refers to institutions making use of their resources to gain improper income or power; but misconduct, which is often individual, could take different forms such as plagiarism, distorting experiment data and tampering with original work.

The existing evaluation system, which emphasizes the quantity of papers rather than quality, is considered the root cause of academic corruption and misconduct in China ?scholars have to publish a certain number of books or papers before they are promoted.

"One of my colleagues was demoted because he failed to publish two papers in key academic journals a year,?He said. "The situation in other schools is worse.?

Zhang Jianzu, a professor at East China University of Science and Technology, said schools are to blame as they often help cover up misconduct. "Many plagiarists still work as professors despite some scandals,?he said.

Some plagiarists also hold administrative positions in schools.

To curb violations of academic rights, the Ministry of Education announced this month that it planned to set up a national supervision committee.

It will work out detailed rules on criteria and punishment for academic corruption and misconduct, and investigate such cases. The 25-member committee will consist of scholars from academic institutions.

Vice-Minister of Science and Technology Ma Songde also disclosed that the ministry would establish an archive database, including books and papers the ministry published. "If any academic violation is found, the stain will be on record for good,?Ma said.

Academic circles applaud the new policies, but how the committee and database will work has sparked heated discussion.

He Weifang insists that the committee be made up of scholars, and procedures be transparent. "Also, those being accused should have the right to appeal.?

He argues that the ministry's committee cannot replace committees set up by individual schools, as "administrative powers should not i

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Plagiarism and fake research have become rampant in China, and are eroding people's trust in academia, Ren Yuing, a member of the Councillors' Office of the State Council, told the recent meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top advisory body.

He cited a recent survey of 180 PhD degree holders, of whom 60 per cent paid to be published in academic journals; and about the same percentage copied others' work.

Based on my own experience working with a visiting scientist, this seems to be a problem in Korea as well. I did alot of work with this scientist that yielded some interesting results at the beginning. This scientist went on to do other research while I wanted to continue probing our initial experiments. Eventually, I stopped working with this scientist because of their methodology (tossing out data that didn't agree with the hypothesis, abusing statistics to make conclusions, misrepresenting the methodology period) and desire to make a huge breakthrough in the field.

This is one datapoint though, so I am generalizing alot. What makes me suspect that there is a problem in Korea is that I came to find out that, somehow, this scientist had published these results in well-known Korean scientific journals. This disturbed me and my colleagues because we didn't want our names anywhere on those papers as they represented the worst in research. Not to mention the fact that they were just an abuse of the trust people have in scientists. We've since severed relations with this scientist, but we shudder at what was going on. It simply was not good science and should never have been published. We suspected bribes or connections.

I've not had similar experiences working with Taiwanese or Japanese researchers though. While I've always been aware of problems in China (and these news reports simply reaffirm it), the research papers produced by Taiwanese and Japanese researchers have generally been quite good. I'll also point out that my old advisor did research with a Korean researcher who was apparently very good, though I never worked with him directly and I've worked with some talented Chinese scientists, so this shouldn't be used as a pretext to devalue the contributions of all Chinese or Korean scientists. It should be seen as a need to start examining what's wrong in those countries with respect to science.

And yes, I am posting anonymously out of professional concerns.

Re:Funny thing about communist countries

[the-intersocialist]

You mean the technology that the american corporations and their contractors in the chinese free trade zones brought with them?

Token Sacrifice

[argoff]

The Chinese have no concept of copyright and patent restrictions like Americans do. This was probably a token sacrifice to appease the whiny US companies who just want to sit on their butts and collect royalties from the billions of masses. I don't know what their concept of plagiarism is, but ironically enforcing copyrights and patents encourages plagiarism - because you just can't be honest about and say "yeah, I did copy it".

Truthfully, I'm glad they don't respect copyrights and patents. It's one of the few freedoms that actually keep China from flying off the deep end. I could't even imagine RIAA types backed by authoritarian Chinese power.

Re:Token Sacrifice

[argoff]

You're saying because some people abuse property rights nobody should have them?

You're saying that becuase some system calls something a property right, that it is. Please give me your address so I can have bubba pick you up pounce you in and deliver you to me as a slave property.

Please give me your home address. I think your right ot own property is "fairly stupid" and I should be free to take your stuff. Give me that freedom you hateful bastard!!!

Please feel free. You can take a *copy* of any property of mine that you see.

Libya...

[YesIAmAScript]

About 4 years ago now Libya renounced their backing of terrorism in the 80s (and 90s) and said they'd like to return to the world community. And since it was Ghadafi in charge then and now, he had no weaseling to do. He just said he was wrong.

It does happen. It takes a lot of humility to do it, which is why we're unlikely to see the US admit wrongdoing soon. On anything like, say, the Cuba embargo.

Re:IP "borrowing".

[Haeleth]

Not a big surprise for a country that doesn't respect intellectual property.

The People's Republic of China respects intellectual property more than many nations, though admittedly it is not as paranoid about it as the USA. The PRC is a member of WIPO, and has strict IP laws. Nor is there any discrimination against foreign IP: Chinese courts regularly rule in favour of US companies whose copyrights and patents are being infringed on by Chinese companies.

You may be thinking of Taiwan.

Re:IP "borrowing".

[vertinox]

Not a big surprise for a country that doesn't respect intellectual property.

And in 50 years, they'll be at the top of the world in research, industry, and science because they didn't.

At least we'll have our lawyers.

Re:IP "borrowing".

[davidsyes]

And, what about the US? V-2 rockets. German adaptation of the Dutch schnorkel? US seizure of German submarines because Germany lost the war. There's a LOT of shit (technology) THIS country acquired merely through the advantage of having "won" the war. Moreover, the US is NOT innocent of industrial espionage.

Did you know that decades ago many high-level businessmen who travelled over seas were debriefed byteh CIA sand other US-government agencies ast to what tech they gleaned in Japan, Europe and other places?

Doesn't matter that it wasn't patented; IP was taken from Germany, Japan, and other countries, even from UK and other allies. The US is NOT so pristine and squeaky clean as many would like to posit.

No country/nation/power/peoples left behind...

Admission

[Mark_MF-WN]

An interesting off-topic little factoid: the government of British Columbia, the province in which I am occasionally proud to live, is considering passing a law that would make it easier for businesses, prominent individuals, and the government to apologize. It's kind of cool if you think about it -- consider how many matters can be resolved quickly and painlessly if one party just says "I fucked up, sorry dude." A bit of goodwill goes an amazingly long way.

The problem of course is the potential legal/financial liability that goes with that, which is what this new law would eliminate. I read that there's a lot of interest in such a law in many parts of the US as well. Could we be entering a time when governments start to be a bit more honest about their screw ups?

Re:IP "borrowing".

[ClamIAm]

The term "Intellectual Property" is a cudgel designed to confuse those who do not understand aspects of law that deal with copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. All four of these areas arose out of different situations, deal with different issues, and have nothing to do with "property".

Americans steal German rocket research!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

So friggin what!

Forgetting for a moment that the article summary is wrong, IP "borrowing"/"theft" is as old as forever. Ogg started it when he hid behind a bush and watched how Ugg broke flint to make sharp edges. The Europeans stole mathematical, boat building and navigation technology from the Chinese 600+ years ago and from the Indians at least that long ago. Pythagoras (I can't be arsed checking the spelling) put his name on work that he got from others.

what I don't like about the Cuba embargo...

[YesIAmAScript]

It's pointless. It didn't drive Castro out. He'll die of old age first. It didn't change Cuba. And the major reason for it in the beginning was that Castro nationalized the assets of US compaines. This drove Cuba to the Soviets. He wasn't really a Communist, but after we turned our back on him, he had no choice, he had to survive, and the Soviets would drop money on him merely because he would be the only Communist country in the Western Hemisphere and only 60 miles from the US no less!

Now the major reason is that the anti-Castro Cuban exiles are a major swing party in a state that is important in the electoral college (and thus Presidential election process). So the parties in power subjagate the actual interests of the country to the votes of a small contingent in one area of one state.

Furthermore, and most importantly, if we don't reconcile with Castro before he dies, it will be difficult for Castro's replacement to make up with the US without being branded as going against "the revolution". So, if we wait out Castro, then try to reconcile, it doesn't go well. If we reconciled now, it'd be much smoother going.

Not that I love Castro. He executed people for the same things that Bautista had jailed Castro for (and released him early after treating him well). He ran his country into the ground trying to prove political points and partly out of spite. I do understand what drove him to do what he did, the same as the American Fruit Company (Chiquita) owning 80% of the land in Honduras.

But I do believe this, we are not solving the Castro problem with the current system, and we might be able to solve it if we changed. But we're too pigheaded to do so. We should apply the principles of engagement to Cuba as we do with China.

On the Libya front, Ghadafi, the asshole, showed himself the bigger man by capitulating. And no credit to Bush, Ghadafi had been kissing the US ass for years trying to get back on our good side. Bush was wise to accept and make maximum political hay from it, but he didn't have anything to do with it.

Too many poor decisions are made for the sake of "consistency". Sometimes you just have to say "the situation has change, the correct course is different now".