China Cracking Down on Plagiarism

In a country notorious for pirated movies, music and software and where copyright infringement and intellectual property are truly foreign words, the wind of change is coming. In the past, China has rarely, if ever, punished a teacher or professor for plagiarism. But things are changing. Huang Zongying, a former associate professor of English literature and language studies at the Foreign Languages School of Beijing University has been fired. Authorities found that a good portion of his academic work from 1999 to 2003 was laden with plagiarism. This is a rare move by a Chinese University to fire one of its professors. Hopefully it will mark the beginning of a new era for academic writing in China.

For further details see http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-08/06/content_362347.htm