Editor’s note: A mild-mannered biochemist by day; a fraud busting "science cop" by night. Much like a comic book superhero, Fang Zhouzi has come to be regarded as one of China's foremost whistle-blowers on all sorts of scientific and academic fraud in China. The following article, compiled from various Chinese wikis, news articles and blog posts (see the source links below), provides a bit of background on the man known as Fang Zhouzi, highlights some of his cases over the last two years (including Tang Jun, Xiao Chuanguo and Li Kaifu), and concludes by summarizing his most recent accusation: Li Qun, the Secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Party Committee lied about serving as an assistant mayor in the United States.

In 1995, Fang Shimin graduated from Michigan State University with a PhD in biochemistry. Soon after, he had a brief career as a molecular genetics researcher at the University of Rochester and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Around the same time, Fang Shimin became interested in a new media device known as "The Internet". He founded a website called "New Threads" (新语丝) to discuss Chinese literature, history and philosophy. As user interest in his website increased, he decided to give up his career as an academic, and become a full-time writer online instead. During the late nineties, Fang Shimin, who at this point was better known by his online alias, "Fang Zhouzi" (方舟子), began to closely follow China’s scientific and academic communities, where he was shocked to see that an obscene amount of blatant fraud  (such as plagiarism, falsification of resume and credentials, misinformation, pseudoscience, and outlandish data fabrication) was present (and seemingly tolerated). Thus, around the turn of the century, New Threads shifted its focus, becoming a sort of one-man scientific and academic fraud-busting website (www.xys.org/pages/dajia.html). The site’s new focus, known as dǎjiǎ (打假) proved popular among its readers, and Fang soon found himself with hundreds of people sending him their own fraud cases for him to investigate and publish (The site is currently blocked in China for obvious reasons). In the time since, Fang, now referred to as China’s  "Science Cop" (科学警察), has gone on to expose many, many cases of fraud among China’s elite, earning him many followers in the process, not to mention a sizable number of enemies.

Science cop versus the former president of Microsoft China

On July 1st, 2010, Fang accused Tang Jun  (唐骏), the former president of Microsoft China Co., Ltd. and current CEO of Xinhuadu Industrial Group of faking his PhD credentials. On Weibo, Fang was critical of statements made in Tang’s book "My Success Can Be Copied", in which he claimed to have received a doctoral degree in computer science from Caltech. Fang checked Caltech’s alumni list and doctoral dissertation lists and found no records of him. In an interview on China National Radio, Tang later stated that he had received no degree from Caltech, but insisted that he had never claimed to have received one either. Further pressed, Tang said that his PhD was from Pacific Western University, which Fang Zhouzi later exposed to be a "diploma mill", an institution notorious for selling sham degrees. Fang further accused Tang of lying about inventing the score-keeping karaoke product that he mentioned in his book. Tang continued denying the accusations, claiming that he had sold the idea to a Japanese company that had patented it. To date, Tang has neither admitted to the above accusations of falsifying his academic credentials, nor has he provided sufficient evident to clear his name.

Science Cop attacked by a vengeful urologist

On August 29th, 2010, Fang was attacked near his house in the Shijingshan District of Beijing by two assailants using pepper spray and a hammer. Fang was able to escape with only minor injuries. He reported the incident to the police and held a media gathering the next day to talk about the incident, in which he acknowledge that he’d received threatening phone calls and seen people following him in the past, and that this attack was likely planned by someone that he’d previously accused of fraud. Although many initially suspected that Tang Jun was responsible for the attack (due to of recent run-in with Fang), following investigation, authorities concluded that Xiao Chuanguo (肖传国), the former head of the Urology Department of Wuhan Union Hospital, had hired two men to attack him. Fang Zhouzi had accused Xiao of academic fraud in 2005 and of medical malpractice in 2009. Xiao was apprehended at Shanghai Pudong Airport on September 21st. During his trial, Xiao confessed to having hired four men to attack two writers who had each accused him of academic fraud. He believed that their accusations had cost him a membership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was sentenced to five and a half years in detention.

Science Cop versus the former president of Google China

On November 22nd, 2011, Fang accused Li Kaifu (李开复), the former president of Google China (currently at Innovation Works), of embellishing his academic credentials in his autobiography. In the book, Li wrote that he had been the youngest-ever associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) at the age of 26, and that if he had stayed in that position, he would have been tenure track. Fang, believing that this statement wasn’t accurate, did some digging and learned that Li had actually been an assistant professor, not an associate professor. After accusing Li of embellishing his academic credentials, the two quarrelled back and forth on Weibo for a few days, as Li asserted that the incident was nothing more than a translation issue and what he had (erroneously) been told by the president of CMU (Li noted that in Chinese, an "assistant" professorship is akin to a teaching assistantship, and does not imply future tenure, so he used the word "associate" instead). On November 30th, Li produced his letter of appointment from CMU and apologized for any confusion brought on by the "immodest" passage in his autobiography. In response, Fang stated simply that Li Kaifu wasn’t another Tang Jun – he had admitted his mistake (which was not really fraud as much as it was overstating his title), unlike Tang Jun who never admitted to faking his degree.

Science cop versus the Secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Party Committee

On December 3rd, fresh off his episode with Li Kaifu, Fang took aim at another Li, this time Li Qun (李群), the Secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Party Committee. Fang Zhouzi accused this Li of lying about serving as the Assistant Mayor of the New Haven city government while living in the United States, something he claimed in his book (China’s government officials often go overseas to gain "administrative experience", which makes them appear more qualified once they return to China). When contacted, a spokesperson for the New Haven city government stated that there was no record of a Li Qun ever working there. Within hours of Fang’s accusatory Weibo post, it had already been forwarded 1.7 million times. Later that day, a user calling themself "Li Qun" posted to Weibo that he really had served as an assistant mayor in the United States, and although he hadn’t directly managed the administrative body, he had participated in administrative discussions. The poster threatened that if Fang continued to run his mouth like this, he (Li) would pursue legal action. For now, the truth is unknown, and the situation continues to develop.

Source: fangzhouzi-xys, baike.baidu, baike.baidu #2, infzm, ifeng, blog.sina
 

Related links
Tang Jun Fake PhD Scandal Escalates, May Involve Other Leaders
China Cracks Down on the Online Rumour Mill
Chinese PhD Dissertations: Many Citations, Little Innovation

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Keywords: Fang Zhouzi academic and scientific fraud in China Microsoft President Tang Jun case