Top Chinese officials plagiarised university theses

Top Chinese Communist Party officials plagiarised parts of their university theses, an AFP review has found, testing the government’s pledge to crack down on academic misconduct. A former vice president, a supreme court judge, a former top public security official, and the powerful party chief in the restive region of Xinjiang are among a half-dozen officials who borrowed from other people’s work without citing them, the analysis showed.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, released last year the first ever national guidelines to enforce academic integrity in research following a series of plagiarism scandals, warning that those caught would be “severely punished”.