#47837
Iam withNature said:
I tend to side with the opinion and suspicion conveyed in this article and I
am afraid that these concerns have a wider basis than the facts relevant to
the specific Olympic event.

Speaking of this wider problem, I have to reluctantly admit that I myself as
both a faculty member and a researcher have witnessed numerous occasions of
striking dishonesty and lack of integrity demonstrated by my Chinese
colleagues and students on a regular basis.

Lets start with the GRE and TOEFL scores that we (in the US) often see in
graduate applications coming from China (most scores there are nearly
perfect). Is there a single University in the US that takes those coming
from China seriously? Those scores are obviously and shamelessly rigged and
are completely useless.

Research. I do see very often pure and simple theft of scientific ideas and
results by various Chinese groups, sometimes in a rather outrageous form.
For example, the following has become a rather routine mode of operation of
one Chinese research group that works in a field very close to mine (so, I
am much familiar with it): they often publish papers which closely follow up
and sometimes simply repeat previously-published original works by others,
but intentionally omit citations to those original papers that the authors
are certainly aware of (of course, the goal is to take credit that belongs
to others). Speaking further about theft, the more well-known example is the
Yao-Perelman affair. Based on what I've seen myself and heard from my many
other colleagues, these are not isolated incidents, but a widespread trend.

Working with my Chinese students, I have discovered to my dismay that some
of them (sometimes quite brilliant and gifted) are pathological liars, who
seem to have absolutely no remorse about twisting the facts around and lying
, whenever they think it might benefit them.

My feeling is that there is a serious underlying problem with ethics, which
appears to be pretty much a non-existent concept in this part of the world.
Actually, it is not very surprising if we recall that the political system
in modern China is based on a big lie (Politbureau, communist party etc),
that nobody believes in but everybody has to adjust to in order to survive.
Add to it huge human rights abuses (that the outside "civilized" world
including the US chooses to ignore), virtual absence of free speech, and yet
all this co-exists with the obvious success of China as a country. So, what
is the message that a young person gets growing up in such a society? I do
not think honesty is placed very high on the priority list.