Academics called for stiffer penalties and criminal charges against professors who take unauthorized grants from China after the Ministry of Education on Thursday fined National Taiwan University (NTU) chemical engineering professor Lee Duu-jong (李篤中).
Fan Shih-ping (范世平), a National Taiwan Normal University professor of East Asia Studies, on Thursday said that Taiwan-China academic exchanges often occur in a legal gray zone, as Chinese research institutes are more often than not state affiliates with Chinese Communist Party representatives on their staff.
“Academics in the fields of law or political science are more sensitive to the implications of [working with China] than those in technological and medical fields,” he said. “As a result, the latter is susceptible to inadvertently breaking the law.”
National security agencies and prosecutors should take action against professors who have inappropriate ties to Beijing, NTU professor of electrical engineering Wu Ruey-beei (吳瑞北) said.
While a fine might have a deterrent effect in terms of reputational damage and career setback, Lee’s punishment is trivial compared with the sanctions US academics would face if they took part in China’s Thousand Talents Program, he said.
Lee can afford to pay the fine of NT$300,000; the real consequence is the disciplinary measure, which would reflect badly if he were to apply to be a national chair professor, Wu said.
Several US academics were fired for taking part in the Chinese program, and one Harvard University professor was arrested and then criminally charged for lying to investigators, he added.
University faculty evaluation boards are frustrated by their lack of authority to properly investigate or impose meaningful penalties when professors are implicated in cases involving unauthorized financial ties to Bejing, he added.
“School boards have no power to access financial information. If the implicated professor says they did not take money from China or moonlight there, the boards have to take their word for it,” Wu said.
Soochow University School of Law professor Hu Po-yen (胡博硯) said Lee’s application for research grants via the Harbin Institute of Technology while working for NTU is a serious breach of contract.
“There is a system of application and evaluation for cross-strait academic interactions, because we need equal and mutually beneficial exchanges, and we have to prevent professors from becoming tools of China’s ‘united front’ tactics,” he said.
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