Actor's doctorate probed after netizens uncover inconsistencies
Zhai Tianlin, dressed in a doctoral gown, poses for a photo in Beijing Film Academy on June 29, 2018.
A Chinese actor whose doctorate was questioned by netizens after his dissertation was nowhere to be found on China’s online academic library said he would cooperate with investigations and withdraw from a post-doctoral program in Peking University.
Zhai Tianlin, 31, apologized for bragging about himself out of vanity after he gained some fame in a statement posted online on Thursday. He said he would accept all the results of the probe and asked for the forgiveness of his fans.
Beijing Film Academy, where Zhai obtained his PhD in June 2018, said a team consisting of officials from the Ministry of Education and Beijing’s Education Commission has started to review the allegations in an online statement issued on Thursday.
The college said it would make public the results and punish relevant persons once the investigation is concluded.
Zhai’s degree was first challenged when a netizen called “Houmei” said he couldn’t find Zhai’s dissertations on cnki.cn, China’s largest and most widely used academic library, in June 2018. Suspicion further mounted when Zhai asked what cnki.cn was in an online interview with netizens.
According to the rules of the Beijing Film Academy, a candidate must publish at least two dissertations in core journals in order to obtain a PhD.
However, netizens only managed to find one thesis titled “The Performance of Bai Xiaowen, a Character in TV Drama White Deer Plain” which was authored by Zhai and published in a magazine, Guangdianshiping (TV and Radio Review), in May 2018. Zhai played the role of Bai Xiaowen in the TV drama.
But the thesis was found to contain significant amounts of plagiarism, as much as 40.4 percent, after a netizen ran a plagiarism check.
Zhai was enrolled in a post-doctoral program of the Science of Business Administration at Peking University in January 2019. Peking University said in an earlier statement that it would make its due decision based on the investigation by the Beijing Film Academy.
