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CAIXINMEDIA

China's Seven Sins Of Academic Misconduct

Campus path in Beijing
Campus path in Beijing

BEIJING — Chinese academia has a widely acknowledged deficit in ethics and integrity. As part of President Xi Jinping's broader national battle against corruption, Caixin reports that the Chinese Ministry of Education has published a draft law that identifies seven forms of academic misconduct.

Here's the list in the bill presented last week: plagiarism; tampering with the research of others; the falsification of data, information, documents or notes; the fabrication of facts or research results; putting one's signature on papers one didn't publish or participate in; using paid papers written by others; or paying to publish in international journals.

The preliminary text stipulates that a guilty party would face punishments such as demotion, dismissal, or expulsion in accordance with the nature and seriousness of their misconduct. According to Caixin, data from China's National Natural Science Foundation, an institution for the management of the National Natural Science Fund aimed at promoting and financing research, shows that between 2010 and 2013 the foundations' oversight committee alone dealt with more than 80 cases of improper behavior, which involved such leading research institutions as the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Tianjin University.

Still, many Chinese scholars believe that the real source of academic malfeasance is actually the suffocating presence of the state itself in universities, which has led to rise in brain drain. Xiao Han, associate professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, said that only with true autonomy can Chinese academic institutes develop properly. "Such conditions are necessary for academia to be able to establish the norms of professional ethics and self-discipline," Xiao explained.

No doubt, there is plenty of studying left to do.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Oscar for Navalny? The World Still Doesn’t Understand What’s Wrong With Russia

The Oscar for best documentary went to the portrait of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, considered Vladimir Putin’s top domestic rival. If it was meant as a gesture of solidarity with Ukraine, Hollywood has badly missed the mark.

Photo of Alexei Navalny taking a selfie. Screenshot from the trailer of the "Navalny" documentary.

Screenshot from the "Navalny" documentary.

Anna Akage

-OpEd-

The Oscar awarded Sunday to “Navalny,” the documentary about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was not much of a surprise. As a storyline, it follows all the laws of Hollywood: a courageous hero, an absolute villain, a love story, oppressed peoples — and a sequel. It also, of course, allows the movie industry to collectively and very publicly declare its strong stance against Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.

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But if Hollywood thought this Oscar would be well-received in Ukraine, they got hold of the wrong script.

Assigning this highest honor of Western culture to Navalny is instead a reminder of how much is still misunderstood about Russia — and what must be done about its invasion of Ukraine.

Sure, Putin’s No. 1 domestic rival plays his role perfectly: Navalny is a caring father, a loving husband, a brave man, an honest politician. The film evokes all the right emotions: sympathy and admiration for the protagonist and regret for the country's plight and its citizens, who, like Navalny, have become figurative and literal prisoners of a regime.


And so the Kremlin’s victim par excellence receives an Oscar against the backdrop of a bloody war that Putin launched in Ukraine over a year ago. Yet Hollywood has, as it is prone to do, not gone beyond the surface — has not done its research.

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