Litigation Alone Would Not Resolve 5 Doubts Regarding Tsai Ing-wen’s Dissertation

 Litigation Alone Would Not Resolve 5 Doubts Regarding Tsai Ing-wen’s Dissertation

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

September 20, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

President Tsai Ing-wen’s doctoral dissertation has been under question in recent months, collaterally the issue of whether she indeed has earned a doctorate has received attention. Whether a president has a doctorate is not an important yardstick in judging whether he or she is qualified for the position, much less so when Tsai Ing-wen will soon complete a full term of office. The problem is that Tsai Ing-wen also taught at universities and claimed that her dissertation was acclaimed by members on the dissertation committee, who decided to bestow on her "1.5" doctorate degrees. Under such circumstances, the authenticity of her doctorate dissertation and academic degree has become extremely important in relation to her good faith as president and professor, there being no room for fuzziness.

Summing up the various questions on the part of outside circles, Tsai Ing-wen's doctorate dissertation has at least five points of doubts that need to be clarified. First, the time for earning a doctorate is curiously short: According to the student record presented by Tsai Ing-wen, she earned a master’s degree in law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) from 1980 to 1982; then, in just two short years from 1982 to 1984, she earned a doctoral degree from the same school. This was much shorter than earning a doctorate in the areas of liberal arts or law generally speaking, unless she pursued a program out of the ordinary.

Second, why this dissertation, which had been unavailable and thought to be missing, has been submitted recently: Tsai Ing-wen’s doctoral dissertation currently kept in the LSE library was submitted on June 28 of this year, thus, the binding is extremely new. And as late as July 13 this year, the dissertation entered the library's digital index system. Why did a dissertation that was not the one of 35 years ago appear 35 years later?

Third, why was the name of the professor who was the dissertation advisor not there: one of Tsai Ing-wen’s advisors was Michael Elliott, and the names of the other two were not made public for unspecified reasons; this is something extremely beyond comprehension. Michael Elliott graduated from Oxford University; it is not clear whether he had a doctorate. However, when he was teaching at LSE, Elliot was an instructor, only 30ish in age; why was it possible that he could advise Tsai Ing-wen to complete her dissertation in such a short period of time?

Fourth, why Tsai Ing-wen's dissertation was full of hand-written corrections and missing pages: doctoral dissertations usually have strict norms for content and format, and a complete, formal edition must be submitted to the university and professors to retain, otherwise they will not be accepted by the university. Would someone say that after Tsai Ing-wen passed the oral defense, she delayed submitting her dissertation and 35 years after graduation, she had not completed the editing of the formal edition?

Fifth, after Tsai Ing-wen returned to Taiwan, she taught at National Chengchi University and later at Soochow University; neither university has kept photocopies of her dissertation or diploma. The two universities only have to flip through their databases to easily find her doctoral dissertation in order to dissipate doubts of various circles. However, why do various circles want to travel half the globe to the UK to seek the truth? Besides, according to the united knowledge databank of this newspaper, Tsai Ing-wen contributed an article on October 30^th, 1983 and carried by the United Daily News titled "On Anti-dumping Duties from the Issue of Our Color TV Exports to the United States ", signed "PhD in International Economic Law, LSE”; this was half a year before she formally earned a doctorate.

Based on the standards the Tsai government applied in "blocking Kuan Chung-ming,” among the five points of doubt mentioned above, every point makes people suspicious and perplexed, why did Tsai Ing-wen’s dissertation return to her alma mater in a strange fashion 35 years later? The public in Taiwan all want to know. May we ask, can National Chengchi University or Soochow University dissipate the doubts instead?

Attachment : none