Media: Tsinghua Professor Xiao Ying Responds, 'I Look Forward to Jiang Fangzhou Suing Me'

Recently, the matter of 'Tsinghua University Professor Xiao Ying publicly reporting Jiang Fangzhou's systematic plagiarism in her Renmin University master's thesis' has become a trending topic on Weibo. On July 4, young writer Jiang Fangzhou posted on her personal social media platform an article titled 'Please Stop Your Online Violence, False Rumors, and Defamatory Reports, Professor Tsinghua,' publicly responding to Xiao Ying's accusations of 'thesis fraud.'

Shortly after Jiang Fangzhou's post, Tsinghua University Professor Xiao Ying accepted an exclusive interview with China News Weekly. He responded in detail to several of Jiang Fangzhou's质疑 and stated: 'I welcome her, and I can even say I look forward to her taking this to court, so I can clarify the matter in court.'

'What Jiang Fangzhou did today is an illusory feat.'

China News Weekly: The first sentence of Jiang Fangzhou's thesis abstract is — 'Mary Shelley (1797–1851) is the author of the famous Gothic novel, and also the world's first science fiction novel, Frankenstein.' She says: 'These are names of people, books, and literary genres. Anyone in the world introducing this book must use this kind of summary.' Why does this constitute plagiarism?

Xiao Ying: The definition of plagiarism can be broad or narrow. The reason I point out that Jiang Fangzhou plagiarized is because two sentences in her thesis abstract — the core information that 'Mary Shelley is a Gothic novelist and the author of Frankenstein, the world's first science fiction novel' — are identical to the opening of another article, and the plagiarism detection system flagged it accordingly. Although she didn't copy word for word, the abstract is supposed to summarize the core of the thesis. Her thesis should have focused on studying Mary Shelley's three identities, not the novel itself or writing techniques. Therefore, these two sentences are unrelated to her research topic and highly overlap with someone else's content. As a supervisor, I would never allow a student to write like this.

Of course, the standard for plagiarism can be debated. But I did not make baseless accusations — I laid out the original text for comparison. You can say my standards are strict or my comparison is wrong, but you cannot say I am defaming her. Fabricating facts is defamation, and I did not fabricate anything. Jiang Fangzhou labeling me as defamatory is quite comedic.

I have presented a total of 23 examples of plagiarism. Even if 10 of them are refuted, the remaining ones are still sufficient to prove serious academic misconduct in her thesis. Academic misconduct is not an 'either-or' matter — disproving one does not overturn the whole. US academic regulations state that several consecutive identical sentences can be deemed plagiarism. Domestically, there is also a standard of 16 consecutive identical characters. It does not require the entire paper to be plagiarized.

As for Jiang Fangzhou's response article, I think it reads somewhat like an AI hallucination. She dragged in my past criticism of her and her family, and even resorted to personal attacks. I could also countersue her, but I choose not to. In my open letter to Renmin University President Professor Ma Huaide, I solemnly stated that due to the limitations of my knowledge and technical ability, my review of Jiang Fangzhou's master's thesis fraud certainly has errors I myself cannot recognize, and I welcome and look forward to his and the university investigators' criticism and correction. I spent months investigating and verifying Jiang Fangzhou's master's thesis fraud. As can be seen from my publicly published WeChat public account articles, I have updated my evidence multiple times. The evidence I provided includes: first, screenshots of Jiang Fangzhou's master's thesis; second, screenshots of the literature she falsely cited and the literature she actually plagiarized. The evidence is conclusive, and anyone can review it. Jiang Fangzhou can deny or refute my judgment and conclusions, but what reason does she have to accuse me of 'defamation'? She hasn't studied law herself, yet she publicly displays such willful disregard for the law! I wonder why the people around Jiang Fangzhou haven't seriously helped her with some emergency legal education.

China News Weekly: You said the epigraph from Milton's Paradise Lost cited in her thesis constitutes 'false fabrication,' but she says this epigraph has been printed on the title page of Frankenstein since its first edition in 1818.

Xiao Ying: Her thesis note says it was cited from the '2007 Yilin Chinese translation.' Not only does this Chinese translation not have it, I checked several Chinese translations — none of them have that 'epigraph.' That epigraph is on the title page of the English edition, not in the Chinese translation content. She's taking advantage of netizens not reading the original text, leading them along.

She can say this is a mistake, not fabrication, but the problem is: academic standards require that citations must indicate their sources and be verifiable. All five of her notes regarding Frankenstein are false — four of the quoted passages are not in that book at all, but in another book and an online article. This book is the specific object of study in this thesis — all five notes, all five false. Can this be called 'irregular citation' as she claims?

The entire thesis has a total of 20 notes, with 12 clearly false ones. An occasional case of citing Book A when actually using Book B could be called negligence. But 12 false notes out of 20? Isn't this systematic false annotation? Isn't systematic false annotation fraud?

What's more ridiculous is that her notes cite Chinese translations, but she actually used the English translation, and insists on calling it a Chinese translation, which doesn't even match. Of the 16 direct quotations in the entire thesis, except for one that differs by only two characters, none of the others match up. What is the purpose of annotations? The purpose of annotations is to clearly indicate the source of citations and facilitate verification by readers and reviewers. Can these 12 false notes be dismissed with a phrase like 'irregular citation'? What academic standards are left for Jiang Fangzhou? Can degree thesis fraud be investigated and punished?

If Jiang Fangzhou's thesis isn't called fraud, then what is? Many people say it's 'systematic fraud.' I didn't use that term. But in my opinion, her fraud may not be systematic, but it is comprehensive fraud.