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Ma Ying-jeou Prince Roy photo
Republic of China in-exile President Ma Ying-jeou's official biography declares, "Ma received a Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) from Harvard Law School in 1981, specializing in law of the sea and international economic law."
Ma's doctoral thesis was titled, Trouble Over Oily Waters: Legal Problems of Seabed Boundaries and Foreign Investments in the East China Sea. The paper was good enough to get him a law degree from America's richest university but does not speak well of scholarship standards at Harvard Law School.
Ma's thesis is filled with errors, mistakes, misspellings, misattribution, missing words and grammatical problems. The thesis contains over 1,000 errors that violate Harvard's writing guidebook for incoming freshmen students
A retired schoolteacher looked up Ma's thesis because she was interested in his views on the Senkaku Islands. The former teacher was shocked by the sloppy scholarship and got out her red pencil. She spent a year studying the thesis, checking out all the footnotes.
The teacher has not yet found plagiarism but with misattributed material and footnotes that do not check out she is suspicious and continues digging into the academic paper.
Like any good teacher, the tireless researcher took her concerns to Harvard where she was directed to Ma's faculty advisor, Detlev Vagts. Professor Vagts is retired and conveniently didn't keep a copy of the thesis he approved.
In 2008, Vagts told the Harvard Crimson about Ma's thesis, "I thought it was very good, very solid and very sensible both legally and politically." Vagts told the Crimson he had been approached by a reporter in Taiwan about "all the typos" but apparently confused the retired teacher with being a reporter.
Vagts said, "Typos really don't matter that much when you are picking a president." However, Ma was not being picked as a president when he submitted his error-filled thesis for academic credit in 1980.
The English-as-second-language excuse does not cover the thesis mistakes, especially since Ma served as translator for Chiang Ching-kuo during his rule of Taiwan. Many of the errors are stylistic and simply betray sloppy work.
The school teacher asked Vagts to directly comment on Ma's errors. The professor responded in writing betraying his own lack of care with typos. "Although I would like to be helpful with Ma Ying Jeou's thesis m ability to do so is limited.It was not then the rule that we kept a copy of doctoral theses for our library and I do not have one in my possession."
Vagts assured the teacher he had "high standards for approval" and he was "fully satisfied that Ma Ying Jeou met those standards."
Comments
I believe there was a story half a dozen years ago or so about how 80 percent of undergrads attending Harvard were graduating with either "Laude" or "Summa Laude" grades. From what I understand it is still all but impossible to flunk out of Harvard.
Harvard is actually the perfect microcosmic reflection of the United States today: All hat and no cattle. A once great institution that has coasted on its name for two generations while behind the facade is rot, decay, and fraud. Potemkin America writ small in Harvard University.
This born cheater has swindled everyone in Taiwan. I didn't know he could even deceived Harvard Law School. I wonder if he could fool Chinese, or he be fooled.
Michael, I hope in a follow-up you could give us details of the errors. Also, tell us about the tireless researcher wherever appropriate. She is a good role model for our very sick world. BTW, Ma does not look as good in any of his recent pictures - this may be material for another follow-up article.
This reader from Taiwan read this article with interest. Ma's Harvard pedigree is part of his myth.
What would also be of great interest here would be to discover if Ma ever passed the bar exam in the US. He claims to have worked as a lawyer for a New York law firm, but there is suspiciously little evidence that he was ever a member of any bar. Of course he is not a lawyer in Taiwan--the bar here is much too difficult for Ma to ever pass. He gets a great deal of mileage out of being a Harvard grad and a "lawyer" in Taiwan. Both still enjoy a great deal of respect here.
Third World PH.D.offered by America's University always related to children of ruling class in authoritarian developing or under developed countries, especially in the Cold War era.
Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou attended NYU with Formosa's ever ruling party KMT's financial aid--so called "Sun Yat-sen Scholarship "and then transferred to Harvard, there's no reason Harvard did not know who sponsor Ma's expense, further more, the Campus SPYING.
I have reasonable guess State Department or CIA or Harvard all know such back door arrangement, and they believe to
arrange KMT key man kids get Harvard degree meet their interest then.
....tw is not a part of the third world, not even during the cold war, genius.
Harvard University is not as good as we think after all. They must have some big "quality control" problem on awarding the academic degrees.
I suggest the investigator find out some Chinese resources. There were some possibilities to appropriate from Chinese scholars' idea.
All of you must have been rejected by Harvard.
Obviously.
I would like to see some examples of those "errors, mistakes, misspellings, misattribution, missing words and grammatical problems".
What about the main arguments in his thesis? If it were sound and solid with fresh ideas, then the degree was well deserved. How come this article didn't comment on that? Instead of focusing on the most essential ingredient in a thesis, you reporters and commentators choose to waste time and resources on discussing the petty details. That is a real shame.
I wonder if there is any thing worthy of mentioning for this man's thesis, especially with so many suerfluous mistakes already.
Where to download "this man's" thesis? This man is fun of showing off his proficiency in English. We shall find a hard proof of his incompetence. See what danger this man had put Taiwan into with his poor command of English. And, think about it, he was the translator for Chiang, Ching-kuo. How many times he had cheated the KMT leader when doing his interpreting or translating? What about the green card he had kept from Chiang's knowledge? This man is really terrible.
So this means that a retired school teacher's opinion on her country's president outweighs the certification of Harvard - this is absurd. We must, then, suspend our disbelief and believe that Harvard and its professors also crookedly passed Ma in his oral defense and written exams in order to confer upon him one of the most difficult-to-attain degrees, a Doctor of Laws.
Can't Ma Ying-jeou just speak English, can he???? His lousy English makes me sick.
English is his second language. What do you expect. He picked up the language after his critical period for learning. Of course he's going to have deficiencies when it comes to grammar as English and Chinese are two extremely different languages. What Harvard was looking for was not only a well constructed thesis but one of substance and fresh ideas. If all Harvard - or any Ivy League school for that matter - was looking for was a nice well constructed, grammatically correct essay, then what separates these great institutions from mediocre universities.
I must also disagree with the author's description of Ma as an 'exiled' President. This clearly shows poor research and a lack of political and historical understanding of the cross-strait relationship.
I checked out Harvard law library on line before. They have electronic copies of thesis dating back to Ma's era, but I could not find his thesis, so the story is worth checking out. Ma has blundered several times during recent interviews with foreign press. If he was not the translator for president Chiang and if he has not bragged about his SJD from Harvard, his difficulties in mastering the English language could perhaps be forgiven. You must wonder though, how many mistakes did he make when translating for president Chiang.
直接稱馬09為roc in exile 中華民國流亡政府總統!并指出他 的英文有多爛1,000 errors 錯誤?博士論文寫的是什麼笑話?鐵證如山大家看吧...還被外國人笑耶 ? 真是丟臉丟到國外去!HE IS a ANIMAL!
in chinese Ma Ying-jeou these three word means amnimal, ma =horse,,.ying=eagle,jeou=dog! to our tawanese, he is nothing but a trader to the communist!
HE wants to sell taiwans freesom to china for his own good! but he forgot we r damacratic country now!
We will pull him down!
we don't want a animal to run our country!
The author is just a retired schoolteacher! That's the problem he was just a "schoolteacher" and not a University professor and by writing this article he proves his level of education is just suitable to be a "schoolteacher" and no more then that! Why? you guys just be smart and think about it!
I have no problem with people who criticism Ma here but please be smarter! Insult is just showing your stupidity.
When I talk to Taiwanese people, Greens or Blues says that's the other party is sinking the boat (Taiwan).
Its True that the boat is sinking, China will be sure unified, but not because of China's strength
but only because of these two stupids parties.
Pray for Taiwan. Amen.
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