China: ‘Fraud cop’ accuses IT bigwig, legal action threatened
In the latest of his many crusades against all things fake or fraudulent, popular “science cop” Fang Zhouzi has taken aim at former president of both Shanda Interactive Entertainment and Microsoft China Jun Tang, calling into question everything from Tang's academic credentials to claimed patents, official SEC testimony, even employment history.
[update: also see Roland Soong's post at EastSouthWestNorth, ‘Tang Jun PK Fang Zhouzi’ for more info]
The squabble, now as a hot a topic in traditional media as discussion spaces online, began July 1 with an update from Fang on his microblog, calling fake on a passage from Tang's recent autobiography:
唐骏《我的成功我复制》第二章第56节最后一段：“办到第二家公司，我差不多已放弃了学业。但凭借语音识别方面的应用性研究成果，我最后还是拿到了加州理工学院的计算机科学博士学位。”——假的，除非这个“加州理工学院”是个野鸡大学的巧妙翻译。
Fang's proof? Caltech has no record of of alumni by Tang's name, nor can that name be found in databases of American college PhD dissertations. Top American universities, he writes, unlike those in China, don't allow people to earn degrees through work, or grant them based on a single “success” or dissertation, adding that diploma mills, however, do. Fang, who lives in California, then goes on to cast doubt on Tang's claims of postdoctoral research done at Caltech as well as patents for inventions claimed by Tang—records for which Fang was unable to find—as well as companies Tang claims to have founded, but are registered with the government of California under different names.
Fang's accusations have led to several media reports in which Tang and his secretary repeatedly decline to answer questions seeking to verify or disprove Fang's accusations or clarify the facts in doubt; on July 3, Fang wrote on his blog that on the previous day he had received a threatening anonymous phone call which he has reported to the police.
Today, Fang writes of suddenly being called up by a reporters from CNR and CCTV and informed of a response from Tang, of a counter-accusation: that Fang's claims of Tang's fakery were in themselves fake. For that, Fang responds on his blog by pointing out discrepancies between statements made recently by Tang on CCTV and those made in the book: namely that no claim had been made by him in his autobiography of having received a PhD from or done post-doctoral research at Caltech. Other assertions made by Tang include that Fang Zhouzi hasn't even read the book yet has also fabricated an alternate version, now being used to set him up. As proof, a copy of Tang's book was shown on CCTV absent the passage in question.
Fang, on his blog, determines through various sources the CCTV version to be from a recent printing, and goes on to find said passage in the many places online where early e-copies of the book can be found; he scans in the relevant pages, and even urges his readers to go to a library and see for themselves, which some apparently have.
Things become even more fascinating when Fang comes across Tang's LinkedIn profile and other sources which suggest that while Tang has a PhD, it was granted either by the unaccredited Hawaii-based Pacific Western University which was forced amid controversy to close in 2006 or the California-based Pacific Western University, now known as California Miramar University, with the institution of the latter name only gaining accreditation last year. Lastly, autobiography aside, Fang takes Tang's statement made on CCTV that he has not received a PhD from Nagoya University in Japan and compares that to documents filed at the time of Shanda's NASDAQ listing in 2004—
—and concludes:
如果唐骏并没有名古屋大学的博士学位，却在招股书中声称是名古屋大学的博士，那么是向美国证监会SEC提供了虚假信息，依据美国法律，将会被追究什么样的法律责任？
Tang, tweets about the World Cup aside (judging from what's been written about this, it appears a number of his tweets have been deleted), has had very little to say :
律师已经建议用法律手段来惩罚捏造事实者，自称打假先作假！好在有法律，中国搞不成还有美国。
第一，今后我的名片上会加印一个博士在名字后。第二，法律会让现在和今后那些捏造事实污陷他人者付出代价。第三，我还是我，什么都没改变，一个我行我素明天开始你行我素的唐骏！…最近有点烦有点烦，好在明天就不烦了…！
Is it possible Fang Zhouzi has gotten all his facts entirely wrong?
Fang, for many, has made his argument clear-cut enough to make a judgment, but, if this Sohu poll is to be believed, quite a significant percentage of people (70%) feel that ability is what really matters, and Tang has proven that he has it.
On Sohu's microblog, user Wu Hai writes:
唐骏这个事情真假不管, 先做个专业讨论,如果你是公关公司,你会给唐骏出什么招? 我想到可能的招数是:1)清白: 否认自己说过,是别人误传;2)无辜: 书是传记作家写的,自己没有认真核对;3)转移注意力:讨论其他人的作假问题;4)立新典范:学历算个屁,耽误有痔青年;5)俗人论:你们是羡慕嫉妒恨, 唯恐天下不乱. 请大家补充,纯学术探讨啊!
5 comments
If one were to purchase a Sung Dynasty porcelain for a good sum of money and then later was told that it is a fake, I would feel cheated, of course. Let’s suppose I returned to the dealer who sold me the porcelain, he refused a refund but insisted that what matters is not whether this porcelain is Sung period but that the fake porcelain’s quality has exceeded the Sung piece. Quality of the porcelain piece should be the yardstick, not the period, for the worth and value of the piece. The dealer reiterated. The question is, would you buy it at the asking price had you known that the porcelain piece is fake? Passing off a fake as genuine is fraud. Period. No way around it. Now let’s further suppose that in order to mollify you over this unpleasant incident, he offers a genuine piece of Ming porcelain at a discount, would you buy it? Of course not. In fact, you would cast doubt on the entire store and its entire collection. That’s the dilemma for Jun Tang’s present employer.
For the public it’s not a matter of whether Jun Tang is a capable corporate executive, but rather how good a fraudster is he? I consider him a crook.
If the Chinese business community and the public don’t get rid of this human virus, sooner of later it will turn into cancer.