Corruption and Fraud in China Rampant and Destabilising
Corruption, fraud, plagiarism, and counterfeiting are all rampant throughout China's society and economy, from top to bottom. It is becoming difficult to trust the economic numbers coming out of China, due to rampant manipulation and coverup of any perceived weaknesses. The problem extends from banking, to the government, to the legal profession and judiciary, to academia and the professions, to the construction and manufacturing sectors. People end up dying as a result, in the collapse of buildings and bridges, in plane crashes, in medical accidents caused by practitioners with counterfeited credentials, and so on.
... a third of the 6,000 scientists at six of the nation’s top institutions admitted they had engaged in plagiarism or the outright fabrication of research data. In another study of 32,000 scientists last summer by the China Association for Science and Technology, more than 55 percent said they knew someone guilty of academic fraud.In China, academics close ranks around a plagiarist, making it difficult to clean out the cheaters from more respectable and responsible researchers. The same phenomenon occurs among bankers, judges, lawyers, government construction inspectors, and so on. Cheating, bribery, fraud, and counterfeit are the order of the day -- and the system is built around the dishonesty to the point that it is almost impossible to change.
Fang Shimin, a muckraking writer who has become a well-known advocate for academic integrity, said the problem started with the state-run university system, where politically appointed bureaucrats have little expertise in the fields they oversee. Because competition for grants, housing perks and career advancement is so intense, officials base their decisions on the number of papers published. _NYT
It should be clear that basing one's future projections of economic demand for many global commodities, on numbers from China's government and banks, is foolhardy.
In a nation full of empty high rise apartments, housing projects, super-highways, shopping malls, factories and office buildings, the connection between spending and economic needs tends to be a bit strained. Throw in rampant bribery, coverups, plagiarism, technology theft and counterfeiting, coverups, and intentional deception at the highest levels -- and it becomes extremely difficult to make solid predictions for the future. Be careful out there.
Labels: China
posted by al fin at 11:24 am
6 Comments:
This should be no surprise to anyone who has followed China's "tradition" of intellectual piracy and coercion when dealing with foreign corporations.
It's much easier to steal than earn.
"A pooled weighted average of 1.97% (N = 7, 95%CI: 0.86–4.45) of scientists admitted to have fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once –a serious form of misconduct by any standard– and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% (N = 12, 95% CI: 9.91–19.72) for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices."
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0005738
So China not very different from home then? Ok depending on whether "questionable research practices" in English differs from "academic fraud" in Mandarin.
Boy, listening to Thomas Friedman and other China apologists you'd think that the Chinese are the most forward thinking, thoughtful, respectable people on the planet. According to Tom, the U.S. is suffering from 30 years of Reagan republicanism. Clearly the Democrats are as thoughtful and forward thinking as the Chinese are.
Thomas Friedman are like many of the pundits in the 80's who used to talk about the Japanese having developed the perfect socio-economic system. All of these people suffer from the delusion (which is taught in public schools) that socialism can work if only we can get the perfect experts in charge of everything.
One of the indications of fraud in GRE scores is that a high percentage of the people who top out the verbal (English) section of the test (i.e. 800/800) are said to be Chinese (who then turn out to clearly have little command of the language when writing to grad schools).
Agreed with Bruce Hall it is of no surprise as it is following the tradition of intellectual poracy and coercion when dealing with foreign countries. It is supplying the worst items and goods to other countries at a very low price.
Really this is embarassing.
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“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” _George Orwell
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