Taiwan ruler Ma Ying-jeou answers retired schoolteacher about his Harvard thesis errors

March 6, 8:34 PMBoston Progressive ExaminerMichael Richardson

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Ma Ying-jeou                    Associated Press photo

Republic of China in-exile President Ma Ying-jeou has issued a response to the Examiner exclusive report about his error-filled Harvard Law School thesis. The Taipei Times got a presidential spokesperson to respond to charges that his thesis should have failed for containing over 1000 errors.

A retired schoolteacher, interested in Ma's views on the Senkaku Islands, had examined the thesis but was shocked to discover so many blatant errors that she decided to grade the paper. Finding over 1000 mistakes, misattributions, and missing words, the schoolteacher contacted Harvard Law School for an explanation of the sloppy scholarship.

Passed around like a hot potato the retired teacher finally confronted Ma's faculty adviser who dismissed "all the typos" as unimportant. Retired law school professor Detlev Vagts refused to comment on specific errors and told the schoolteacher that Ma grasped the basic concepts and had a good understanding of the law.

Vagts also told the schoolteacher, "I have now no recollection of the politics involved but I know that we would have insisted on his being as objective as possible with respect to the rather sensitive international issues that played a role in his work. One needs to remember that relations between mainland and island China were very different in 1981."

Presidential spokesperson Wang Yu-chi told the Taipei Times, "the value of a doctoral thesis should be its viewpoints and contributions to the specific field."

Wang said the fact that Ma received the doctorate from Harvard was the best proof of the quality of his thesis.

Ma has prided himself on his command of English and served as translator to Chiang Ching-Kuo during his rule of the island. The translator duties launched Ma's political career leading to his control of the Kuomintang political party prior to his election as President.

Back at Harvard University, one of Ma's old fellow students is now a law school professor at the university, William Alford. Alford told the Harvard Crimson that Ma was "a person of real intelligence, probity, and ingenuity."

"Even 30 years ago, when we where students at Harvard Law School, it was clear that he would be making his mark on the world."

While Ma is busy making his mark on the world, a retired school teacher continues making marks on his thesis with her red pencil. After discovering multiple misattributions and footnotes that do not check out, the schoolteacher is busy searching for plagiarism which she now suspects.