Tsai Ing-wen's PhD thesis

Free speech and Taiwan but also don’t buy into black/white you are with us or against us horseshit. Prosecutorial aggressiveness here (when their former leader was put in jail in the 80s for similar allegations) illustrates the differences between DPP and KMT are very tiny when in power.

We now know where the false allegations came from: a content farm in Malaysia, with funding ties to China, which also recruited and funded locals to amplify the bullsh&t, trying to discredit Tsai.

As noted in the story you linked, LSE has responded directly to clarify the matter, stating unambiguously that Tsai completed her degreee.

If the bullsh&t continues to be spread locally after all this is known, then I am sorry—enough is enough.

Guy

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More like a deliberate disinformation campaign.

You really do need to educate yourself for how things are working now in Taiwan.

If you wish to do so, you may consider starting here:

Guy

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To the tune of five years in jail? In 1986, CSB was jailed for only eight months for libel. The DPP are out CCP’ing the KMT. :face_with_monocle: :poop:

Some of the others involved in the story you linked are begging the prosecutor to go after them too:

The indictment came after Tsai in September 2019 filed a lawsuit against Ho De-fen (賀德芬), a law professor emeritus at NTU; Hwan C. Lin (林環牆), an associate professor of economics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and Peng after they said that her academic credentials were fake.

Ho and Lin had not been indicted because the two had double-checked their claims as best as they could before making the accusations, prosecutors said.

The office also did not find sufficient evidence indicating that the two academics had malicious intent, and wanted to denigrate Tsai and damage her reputation, it said.

Ho yesterday called a news conference in Taipei, urging prosecutors not to treat defendants differently.

“I am 100 percent — totally, absolutely, unreservedly — certain that Tsai did not write a doctoral dissertation, nor had an oral defense, or obtained a doctoral degree. Prosecutors, there is no need to go light on me,” she said.

Tsai’s academic credentials have been the subject of discussion in local media since Peng raised the issue in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election.

Why?

Guy

I think a strong, robust democracy has the power to withstand such garbage. But when it responds to such inaccurate disinformation with overzealous prosecutorial power, it not only gives more awareness to the garbage issue, it does a disservice to the democratic progress the country has made. I read the story, thought it was shit, but thought that they overreacted to it (which is weird because the Party was started in the 80s to promote democracy but also to combat such selective interpretations of the law and selective prosecutions as with CSB).

In the west, people, if they don’t like you, go after your taxes. In Asia, being a region that values education, they question your degree. :smile: By giving attention to nutters, the prosecution is showing 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

And that is kind of sad.

Such “democracies” are being messed around globally by f-book and other platforms that amplify bullsh&t. In contemporary Taiwan, Line has turned out to be a big part of the problem too.

Your faith in things magically working out without a legal system is touching but also frankly blinkered given how this fake story—along with many others—has played out.

Guy

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No, just aware that a Party that cried over 8 months for libel in 1986 seems to have no problem with up to 5 years now. Bad optics but not surprising. Brian Kennedy, who used to post on Forumosa years ago, and was deeply involved in promoting human rights for international organisations, often ridiculed CSB (calling him greaseball) over his waning interest in human rights.

Lenin used to call Western fans of the Soviet systems useful idiots. Sometimes, I think foreign cheerleaders for the DPP could be classified in the same bracket.

Such “democracies” are being messed around globally by f-book and other platforms that amplify bullsh&t.

So what do you suggest doing? Be the online Stasi —supporting liberal worldviews being waterboarded on the masses by Silicon Valley and punishing any opposing views by banning people, prosecuting them in a zealous manner, etc.? Very Putin-esque

Wasn’t it Michelle Obama that said 'when they take the low road, we take the high one." :smile: :smile: :innocent: Another example of liberals being naive? :wink:

Yes.

However, war never ended with China. Colluding with the enemy to influence elections is treason in war times IMO.

This is completely different than you and me criticizing our politicians for whatever reason. We aren’t colluding with an enemy nation.

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Don’t disagree – but on educational qualifications and libel? Frivolous and hypocritical given the history of the DPP. Even if funded from abroad, don’t use strong armed tactics. Keep those powers for real dangers to national security. Or you risk becoming like them. :cowboy_hat_face:

What is next? A new pan-green Garrison Command and legal arm for combatting CCP-friendly social media? Sounds like the dark arts the Saudis used against Khashoggi or any form of dissent.

Yeah, this is something you just let die.

It’s the sort of argument a group resorts to when they’ve got nothing else. It very much reminds me of the “birther” movement in the US.

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or hunter biden’s laptop

I haven’t even heard that one, thankfully.

My parents were sued for libel before they left Taiwan. This was under martial law. That’s when they decided where they wanted their children to grow up.

Looks like things haven’t changed.

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According to Chewie, “[t]he DPP are out CCP’ing the KMT.”

I am sorry but this is simply ridiculous—and one does not have to love the DPP to find current declarations of a so-call “Green Terror” to be offensive. Such pronouncements could only be made from someone living thousands of miles away from Taiwan combined with a willful misunderstanding of what these organizations have done and are doing to the peoples they claim to represent.

Oyster: when you can, I encourage you to come and check this place out for yourself. Our home is far from perfect. But anyone who tells you that contemporary Taiwan is just like the White Terror days is shoveling bullsh&t.

Guy

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He swings hard— and misses. Such nativism belongs in the 19 Century in the Know-Nothing Party in the 1850s United States or perhaps in the rural south of Taiwan present day. :wink:

It is from someone who worked in Taiwan, married in Taiwan, raised two lovely kids in Taiwan, owned property in Taiwan (most foreign commentators can not make that claim :laughing: :laughing:), has a letter of reference from a DPP minister in Taiwan for his contributions to Taiwan, and then worked for industry leaders in IP in Taiwan, etc. I doubt you have such an imprint or ever will. But do try again? :cowboy_hat_face: :cowboy_hat_face:

But anyone who tells you that contemporary Taiwan is just like the White Terror days is shoveling bullsh&t.

Except on the length of libel sentences. Worse than what they did to CSB in the 1980s if they throw the book at this person. Not very evolutionary or indicative of democratic progression, is it?

I didn’t say that. I have green tendencies. My comment was limited to the libel laws. The State Department’s recent human rights report expressed concerns about those laws. And I have family experience with this because my parents ran a newspaper in Southern Taiwan when they were young.

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So do I believe it or not. But one should have the chutzpah to call it evenly on both sides (when they see dangerous and similar patterns emerging). Your reference to the State Department report is 100 percent spot on. At least the adults in the room (and you!) get it.

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One of my masters thesese from around the same time is missing and the institution (Napier University in Edinburgh. The department had closed) had no record that I did the course when I enquired about it (when starting my current job about 15 years ago.)

I have another one (much/even crappier, as it happens) from Aberdeen University so I just cited that instead. For basic job-qualification purposes no one cares about the quality.

I had a soft copy in a box of floppy disks (Its a long time ago) which a girlfriend left on top of an electric fire and melted.

Am I sounding unconvincing? Perhaps I should go into politics.