So the more radical and fundamentalist members of the Christian wing of the DPP had split from the party and formed the so called Formosa Alliance. Its Chinese name actually translates to the Island of Joy and Peace Alliance.
Lately they’ve been retreading the attack on the legitimacy of Tsai’s PhD degree at England’s London School of Economics and Political Science, despite the fact that LSE congradulated Tsai as an alumni after her 2016 victory.
Their main claim is based on the fact that no physical or digital copy of her thesis is available to the public. They also claim that Tsai’s LSE student record is filled with inconsistancies.
They say that based on her student record, Tsai entered LSE in 1980, and dropped out in 1982, so she couldn’t possibly have finshed the program in 2 years. Her degree and original thesis title have been altered. The degree box originally had Master (law) written in it. That was crossed out with PhD added on top. They then claim that Tsai’s supervisors weren’t doctors. They also think she couldn’t have been awarded a degree in 1984 when she already dropped out in 1982.
My personal conclusion is that Tsai finished her required classes in 1982, and decided to take a suspension to avoid paying tuition until she had completed her thesis. She used financial difficulties as her excuse for the suspension. She finally decided on her thesis title by January 19 1983. At somepoint she changed the title. Then she applied for her PhD exam and defense June of 1983. Finally she was awarded the degree February of 1984. It took her 4 years to complete her program.
Also, I think supervisor on her student record might mean something different from what the word usually means in the US today. However, since I never went to school in England, I don’t know if my interpretation is correct.
Aside from her student record, Tsai also provide these documents:
The issue here is that there is no digital copy. And though the library page says it’s on the shelf somewhere, no one was able to prove the physical copy acutally exists. Even the guy who claims he went to the LSE library only got the librarian to get to that page you posted.
The fact the library only just provided a digital record of the thesis this year is also making it harder to dispel the rumor.
In 1984, nobody had digitised theses. Now, some universities are slowly going back and making pdf by scanning pages, but it is NOT a priority at all. It is a PITA to do, and takes a lot of resources (staffing, mostly).
here in Japan we only switched to digitised versions being required in about 2010. The Diet Library essentially ran out of room for lodging the paper copy. And as another example, at Sydney, where I got my first degree, the university only accepted its first digital thesis in the late 90s. And that was a special case, because the guy used a lot of protein models that could not be viewed in 3D on paper.
As an aside, I am involved in admissions decisions here at our university, and look at 1000+ applications a year. Those papers from LSE look very legitimate. Saying otherwise is a beat-up, and probably bullshit.
Changing thesis titles between lodging the proposal and submitting the final document is completely normal. Sometimes you only work out what the thesis was really about after you have finished writing it up.
Your supervisor can recommend you change it, as your research is taking you in a different direction.
This is not some backwater university it’s one of the top ten law schools in the world, if they had any doubts about her PHD i don’t think they would list her as Alumna.
The whole digitized thing is BS, there’s no digitized version of my thesis and I finished way after Tsai Ing-wen, I’d be surprised if the hardcopy is still in the library after all these years.
Wasn’t the hardcopy of Tsai’s found but access restricted?
And what is their explanation for the LSE participating in this grand conspiracy? Why on earth would they could confirm her graduation if she didn’t really finish?
Amother rumor that I can’t confirm or deny by these fundamentalists is that all other PhD thesis from 1984 are available, only Tsai’s thesis is missing.
They also claim that her supervisor Mr. Eliot had only ever supervised one student, Tsai Ing-wen.
The ridiculous premise of this conspiracy is that the people at LSE somehow knew that Tsai would become the president of Taiwan all the way back in 1984.
I mean there is absolutely nothing remarkable about Tsai as a student of LSE back then.
Sounds like when US “birthers” tried to say that Obama’s parents falsified his birth announcement in a Honolulu newspaper… back in 1961…because they somehow knew he’d run for president 47 years later?
Supervisors these days means a professsor that over sees the direction of one’s research, at least in the US and Taiwan. That usually means that a supervisor/professor of an university is almost always a doctor as well.
Everything Urodacious says above is spot on. The whole conspiracy theory is fake nonsense. So the physical copy seems to be missing? So what? They don’t guard those things, you know. Anyone could steal it from the library “Oh, look, it’s the president’s thesis, I’m going to steal it!” So that’s one possibility.
Another possibility is that some grad student or professor is reading it or using it for research or to cite in an article. Usually grad students and professors have privilege to keep books in their office or study space for long periods of time … they don’t get late fees.
So some schmuck couldn’t find it on the shelf and decided it’s a conspiracy? Give me a break!
And one final point. Even at fancy prestigious schools, the student submitting a PhD thesis has to pay out of pocket to get one copy privately printed, just so it can sit on the library shelf gathering dust. The school doesn’t have extra copies on reserve. So if someone steals it or even spills a coke on it, it’s gone and they can’t order a new copy.
But back in the 1980s, especially in economics areas, fewer of the faculty were actually PhD holders. That certainly did not disqualify them from being faculty, nor from supervising PhD students.
These days, it is very rare to see someone on faculty without a PhD. In my university, it is an absolute requirement (but that’s living by the very strict MEXT rules, as well as by general practice in modern science).
This thread worries me greatly. Cambridge have apparently “ lost “ my Doctoral Thesis, and worse , say they have lost any records of me having one at all . Of course this must be down to their appalling administration and I shall complain bitterly . Took me almost 3 weeks , so you can imagine my abject dissatisfaction
Any comments on the KMT implosion led by Korean Fish? Froggers, calling them “with water in the brain” is really something.
I cannot believe they are so transparent as to go to Beijing for advice and play this whole telenovela about removing Hang right on everyone´s tv screens. Are they up to something more sinister? Or do they really believe themselves the mambo kings, or rather, the mango kings, owners of Taiwan.
The idiocy being that if she loses , their chance of independence may be less . Do these accusers ever consider that a PhD in their case ,may be a hindrance to common sense … they should do a dissertation on the stupidity of their own outlook on life imo.
