Tsai accused of making anonymous donation to LSE Taiwan Studies Program in exchange for doctoral degree
Taiwan News
Date: 2019/10/21
By: Taiwan News, Staff Writer
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The website Taiwan People News on Monday (Oct. 21) published an
Cao Changqing (Left) and Dennis Peng (Right) aim to discredit President Tsai Ing-wen and her doctorate credentials (Youtube screengrab)
In an awkward explanation of events, columnist Cao Changqing (曹長青) suggests that Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is responsible for an anonymous donation of GB£480,000 (NT$19 million) made to the LSE Taiwan Research Program and received by Professor Shi Fang-long (施芳瓏). According to Cao’s theory, this was a donation made in New Taiwan Dollars that somehow helped Tsai obtain her doctorate degree or possibly a phony dissertation from the university.
However, according to the financial disclosure statement from LSE, the donation in question was delivered over the course of seven years, from 2007 to 2014, probably in installments. It was made long after Tsai received her Ph.D. degree from LSE in 1984 and many years after she began working as a professor in Taiwan. Furthermore, Tsai took office in 2016, and her dissertation only became a topic of speculation in 2019.
The new accusation about an anonymous payment for some allegedly nefarious assistance from LSE appears to be in response to the letter from LSE confirming the authenticity of Tsai’s degree and dissertation as well as the president making a print copy of her thesis available at the National Taiwan Library. [FULL STORY]
