A plagiarism scandal broke out in March in Chinese academic circles when Nanjing University literature professor Wang Binbin charged that Wang Hui's dissertation on Lu Xun -Resistance to despair – contains a number of passages lifted from other books without citation. (More background information from Granite Studio and ChinaGeeks)
Wang Hui is honored as the spokesperson of the Chinese “New Left” intellectual circle and in spite of the scandal, in May he was nominated by Tsinghua University and successfully received a scholarship award from the highest government authority, the State Council.
While Wang Hui kept silent and expected the matter to be “clarified within the academic community”, many scholars and public intellectuals have commented on the issue via local media outlets. Some defended Wang Hui; some pointed out that the dilemma is one of non-standard citation rather than of intentional plagiarism; some have suggested a thorough investigation be led by an independent academic committee. The whole debate has mainly taken place within the local academic circle and online public sphere until very recently (July 7) when a local media outlet (ifeng.com) disclosed a joint letter signed by “an international community of scholars, translators, editors, historians and cultural critics” in support of Wang Hui.
Backup from international academic community
The open letter, signed by many prominent western scholars such as Tani Barlow, Arif Dirlik, Gayatri C. Spivak and Frederic Jameson, frames the plagiarism charge as an “attack from the popular media in China” and defends Wang Hui's academic integrity:
The charges have been contested and discredited in the careful analyses given by Zhong Biao, Shu Wei, Wei Xing and others. Among the signatories to this letter are also translators and they are without doubt closest to the work of Wang Hui. Each translator has checked and double checked all the footnotes in the vast bibliographies of Professor Wang's publications over the last thirty years. None has found any indication of plagiarism no matter how loosely this word is defined.
Second, among us are many Asia specialists in Chinese studies and we attest to Professor Wang's scholarly integrity and his importance in international Asian studies.
Interestingly, the two accounts of Zhong Biao and Wei Xing, quoted in the letter, were set up for the purpose of this debate but quoted as if the two individuals were well-known public intellectuals. In addition, their “careful analyses” have yet to clear Wang Hui of his technical mistakes. In Zhong Biao's article, he explains the background of Wang Hui's book and criticizes Wang Binbin's unreasonable charge:
《反抗绝望》的编辑出版正好处于1988-1991年这一段众所周知的特殊时期，当时具体的学术规范状况与今天有很大的不同。汪晖在该书重印时的对“主要参考书目”的“注”中说：“本书初版时，应出版社要求，删去了全部参考书目。现在这份书目是重新编定的。”
脱注是作者的疏失，日后修订《反抗绝望》时可以补充完善。但从上下文的引证来看，作者并无掩盖与前述几本著作的关系的意思，因为在这些段落的前后，作者都 曾引及这些书。而且这里的引述主要都是历史背景性的或理论背景性的叙述，是参照性质的，并不涉及作者的中心观点。疏失和剽窃，是完全不同性质的问题。
Media Attack?
Wei Xing is the first to frame the issue as a media attack and his viewpoint has obviously been taken up by the international community of scholars’ joint letter:
从王文来看，汪晖所谓”抄袭”的地方其实”并不很多”，而且”较难定性”。这其实已经承认，3月25日《南方周末》破例刊登王文，其实是一种媒体预先设定”有罪”推论而进行的非法的”缺席”审判，因为其论证本身是完全站不住脚的。
Quoting from a number of debates across web-platforms such as Douban's Duping（讀品） and zhongguosixiang.com, Wei Xing believes that media and internet violence have destroyed academic integrity:
面对平面媒体与网络媒体合谋推动的猖狂暴力，学术其实已经斯文扫地。难道中国的学术界就只能这样陷入其中而不能自拔吗？学术界究竟如何来保卫自己的独立与自由？这已经是一个摆在学术界面前的严峻问题。
A transparent and accountable investigation
Many scholars and intellectuals will laugh at the above quote as the Chinese Academia has hardly enjoyed any freedom and independence since 1949 and political liberals believe that the only way to strike for academic freedom is to develop accountability to the public. In this sense, the joint letter signed by more than 60 local university professors and public intellectuals calling for immediate investigation by the Tsinghua University and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on Wang Hui's plagiarism charge is probably a most effective attempt to defend the academic independence and freedom:
事件發生距今已3個月，其間不斷有學者呼籲中國社會科學院和清華大學組織調查委員會，但是至今未見回應。汪暉對上述批評迄今也沒有任何回應，但他曾表態， 希望能由學術界內部來解決。為對汪暉教授負責，澄清這一爭議，結束莫衷一是的狀態，走向良性循環，我們支持熊、林二位的建議，聯名要求中國社科院和清華大 學迅速答複，履行職責。我們也同意易中天的主張，在組成調查委員會時，應邀請貴院、貴校之外的學者，乃至海外學者參加，公示委員會名單和調查結果。我們同 時要求，調查結論以及各委員投票意向最終能公布，以示公開、公正，接受公眾監督。
Local political liberals VS. international new left
The two letters is now viewed as a confrontation between two clans of intellectuals: the local political liberal VS. the international new left. The former calls for a transparent investigation and public accountability, the latter frames the debate as attack from popular media and open criticisms as violence against academic freedom.
Wu Lian, a literary critics is outraged by the international joint letter:
你们居然说“媒体无端地攻击一个学者”，无端，那就是诽谤！你们应该在中国将媒体告到中国法庭！而不是通过写信，给一个面目模糊的大学当局施压！你们搞错了，大学校长不是法官！
你们声称要“声援”汪晖教授？你们又搞错了吧！难道这是一次政治迫害？我们怎么从来没有看到你们在另一些远为严重的事件之后，对那些被迫害者的声援？你们是否觉得，你们的所谓学术声誉，居然比另一些价值更为重要，更需要加以急迫的保护？
你们任意裁剪光天白日之下的事实，关注此事的每一个汉语阅读者，都知道王彬彬教授指控汪晖教授《反抗绝望》一书涉嫌抄袭的那篇文章，首先发表在中国学术期刊《文艺研究》，此后才由《南方周末》刊登！你们显然故意忽略了这一事实，就如你们常说的那样，“历史是被建构出来的”，你们现在直接“建构”事实了！
在这一“建构”之下，学术刊物《文艺研究》从人间蒸发了，不见了，消失了，不存在了！
这是对一本重要的中国学术刊物的公然藐视！
Under such “construction”, the local academic publication, Literature and Arts Studies has vaporized, vanished, disappeared!
This is an insult to an important Chinese academic publication!
你们给清华大学当局写这封言辞灼灼的公开信，到底所意何为？证明汪晖教授的清白？可是调查尚未开始！证明汪晖教授学术成果斐然享誉你们所建构的“世界”？可是王彬彬教授并没有谈论这个问题！证明“媒体”只是一场“狂乱”，希望学校当局不要加以理会？可是已有众多的学院学者介入了此事，媒体履行了它的职能，因为公众具有知情权！莫非你们认为学者只要在媒体发表文章或发表言论，他们就成了媒体的一部分？
Immediate responses
It seems that the international turn of the scandal is doomed to add oil to the boiling water in China .Below are some immediate responses from Twitter:
汪晖不是成天反全球资本主义的扩张吗, 怎么一到自己跟前,就抱上全球文化霸权的大腿了, 真恶心人啊
汪暉在國內和西方都自居左派。在國內，和共產黨抱團，叫左派。在西方，反體制，叫左派。
80位学者支持剽窃的公开信观点和老头劈叉——扯蛋一样。公开信三点均属扯淡，第一点未解释举报者提出的抄袭段落；第二点证明剽客诚信谁信证明者？第三点攻击传媒，把汪晖替换为“大学”！此公开信无耻啊！
9 comments
There’s no money in caring and I frankly I don’t see how intellectuals who are skilled in using 2000 words to say something that normal people would use five to convey are important anyway. You can’t outtalk someone if people are too bored to listen or read through to the end. Nobody buys published dissertations either. Don’t know, don’t care.
Oiwan, thanks for finding this. It’s absolutely fascinating.
The mass mail calling for the signature campaign has been leaked out (see below). The calling for investigation by Lin and Yu was interpreted as “press(ing) Qinghua University to fire Wang Hui for being a bad influence on scholarship and morality”.
Lin and Yu did press the Qinghua university to invest the case, and decide accordingly. if they failed to do so, he should resign. The exact wordings:
“中国学术界最近一再声言要与世界学术接轨。如果这不只是一句口号的话，我认为负责督导校内学术发展、维持学术秩序的清华大学文学院院长与清华大学校长，有政治与道德的责任尽速成立‘汪晖涉嫌抄袭调查委员会’，根据调查报告作出符合上述原则的决定：根据鉴定的确实证据作出停薪、停职或撤职的决定。如果清华大学校长、文学院院长不愿作出任命‘汪晖涉嫌抄袭调查委员会’的决定；显然得很，他们未能负起责任，他们自己应该下台。”
———————————–
Dear All,
Please forgive the mass mail.
Professor Wang Hui of Tsinghua University has come under sustained media attack over the last three months.
The initial essay that Professor Wang Binbin of Nanjing University wrote regarding Wang Hui’s sloppy footnoting has snowballed into a mediatized frenzy with American, Taiwan based, professor emeriti Lin Yusheng and Yu Yingshih accusing Wang of immorality and violation of international scholarly norms.
Tomorrow will bring another round of allegations that 22 years ago when Wang Hui wrote his dissertation he did not use proper footnote form, failed to put quotation marks around some of the sources he quoted, and attributed prose to the wrong author.
Although Lin Yusheng himself admits that the charge of plagiary is actually probably not accurate, he continues to press Qinghua University to fire Wang Hui for being a bad influence on scholarship and morality.
Moreover, Lin is pressing his case in the popular media, where readers do not know much about scholarship and scholarly norms. We are deeply concerned about the impact this is having on Wang himself and on university culture.
Professors Sandro Russo, Claudia Pozzana, Rebecca Karl, Lydia Liu and I are writing Asia scholars who know Wang Hui’s record of achievement to ask for your endorsements.
We intend to present the attached letter — with signatures of prominent international scholars — to theTsinghua university presidents tomorrow afternoon.
For those of you who read Chinese the internet is chockoblock with allegations about the “Wang Hui Plagiary Incident,” though many authors seem either not to know what plagiary means or have an non-scholarly axe to grind.
For those of you who do not read Chinese we are preparing a bilingual website that will give a chronology of the attacks and information from scholars living in China who have carefully studied the case and have ｄｅｃｌａｒｅd the charge of plagiary to be a non issue.
If you have translated Wang Hui’s work at any time over the last decades please identify yourself. We are putting translators at the beginning of the petition because translators check footnotes and are in the best position to ｄｅｃｌａｒｅ plagiary.
Please read the attached letter, and if you are able, immediately send me authorization to use your name and institutional affiliations on the letter we present to the University presidents.
Thank you for your immediate help.
(deleted)
For those of you who could read Chinese, here is a link that summarizes all the hard evidence on Wang Hui’s plagiarism.
http://jflycn.com/wangiarism
For what I have read so far, the evidence is overwhelming. There are instances where Wang Hui directly copies whole paragraphs from other scholars’ works without any footnoting. Worse than that, in several occations Wang Hui simply took comments on one historical figure (e.g. Liang Qichao) by other scholars and changed to his own comments on another historical figure (e.g. Lu Xun).
Wow, what kind of person leaks this? You should be ashamed of yourself. DO you fancy yourself some type of investigative journalist? And a liberal? You’ve acted in a poisonous way and are spreading slander and policing what must seem to you to be “dangerous mainlander leftists.” Perhaps you are just a teenager or something, but please think more carefully before you act.
dan,
don’t know exactly which piece you are referring to. if it is the mass mail, it has been circulated around the mainland internet via douban and other forums before i put it here. and the leaker should be those who received that mail. not me though i have deleted the sender’s name. however, i think the sender of the mail and those who signed because of the mass mail call acted more teenagers (in the way that they acted like superman for saving the poor chinese new left small brother) than the leaker.
does anyone else think it’s strange that this is such a big story? i mean, is wang hui really that famous? were ‘netizens’ following the academic debates surrounding dushu when he was editing it? did they know who any of these people were before this story was promoted? i don’t think so. so the question is why people can instantly become upset about the situation. the answer is that it is a media event. maybe he will be fired and netizens will celebrate, at least i’ll still have his books to read and learn from.
wang hui’s main work is in chinese literary and intellectual history. however, for people who are less interested in that subject, i still highly recommend his short book ‘china’s new order.’ it is a very detailed analysis of the student movements in the 1980’s, why they grew, why they ultimately failed in ’89, and how a new movement might work towards real democracy (not a copy of the hypocritical west) in china. wang was of course involved in these events, but it is an analytic book on the economic and social background of the time. the book obviously cannot be published in china.
a sense of his political position might help people understand why many are not surprised that of all chinese intellectuals, wang hui finds himself under attack from the media. on what constitutes the norm of academic practices at different times, i think people shouldn’t underestimate zhong biao’s point. otherwise you would have to say that his professors at the time were so uneducated that they didn’t know which parts were citations and which parts were his own argument.
Yes, Wang is not very popular internationally. if there isn’t an international support letter – signed by really famous and prominent international scholars, i would not have written this article. it is beyond the plagiarism scandal now, but an interesting case on the sectoral academic politics.
Wang Hui will never be fired, even if he copied a whole book. it is the china logic, Wang Ming Ming, a very prominent anthropologist in Beida, whose works have inspired so many people, including myself, was found translate-copying a whole book. he was suspended for one year – he spent the time doing field work. and back to Beida.
I think people would understand the lack of academic discipline in the past, and indeed many local academics did come to defend Wang Hui against such background, but I guess they are also agitated by the framing of their public speech as “organized media attack”. Besides, Wang is very famous locally because he was once the editor of Dushu, a popular semi-academic magazine read by university students and intellectuals -and nowadays most university students and intellectuals have their blogs and are very active in online forums.
The international letter has fanned the flame.