Three Taiwanese scholars – Professors De-fen Ho, Dennis Peng, and Hwan C. Lin – held an International Press Conference on “The Final judgment of President Ing-Wen Tsai’s Thesis Scandal” in Taiwan Legislative Yuan on September 9, 2021. In this press conference they presented very specific and critical evidence which strongly challenge the authenticity of Taiwan President Tsai’s PhD thesis and doctoral degree:

Evidence about Ing-Wen Tsai’s PhD thesis:

1.                In 1984 when Ms. Ing-Wen Tsai applied for the faculty position at Taiwan National Chengchi University, the title of the thesis she recorded in her resume was: “Law of Subsidies, Dumping and Market Safeguard” as shown in documentations provided by the Ministry of Education in accordance with instructions from Taiwan Administration Court. Nevertheless, this thesis title is completely different to the thesis provided by Tsai’s Presidential office and kept at the National Central Library of Taiwan and the Women’s Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2019, which has the title of “Unfair Trade Practices and Safe Guard Actions”.

2.                The University of London (UOL) requires that after passing the PhD oral examination, all of their Law doctoral students should submit three copies of final assessed and approved version of the thesis to three different libraries – the Institute of Advance Legal Studies (IALS) Library, Senate House Library, and LSE Library. A degree will only be awarded after this submission. However, Tsai’s submission of her assessed thesis has never been registered in the IALS Library or the Senate House Library. Within the IALS Library catalogue, there are consecutive serial numbers for all thesis submitted and held at the IALS library through the years. However, there are no corresponding serial numbers for Ms. Ing-Wen Tsai’s thesis. This proves that Tsai’s thesis was never submitted to these libraries, rather than being misplaced or lost by the libraries.

3.                Base on the Richardson’s Report by independent journalist Michael Richardson, the digital version of Tsai’s thesis submitted by Tsai’s presidential office in June 2019 is not the one that was assessed by UOL in the 1980s.

Evidence about Ing-Wen Tsai’s doctorate:

1.                After Ms. Ing-Wen Tsai returned to Taiwan in 1983, she publicly declared that she has a doctoral degree from LSE which was managed by UOL at that time. This clearly shows that she has long intended to lie about her degree publicly since 1983. 

2.                Ms. Ing-Wen Tsai has never been able to provide the original version of her PhD diploma which she should have been awarded in 1984. Since 1984, she has presented 3 completely different versions of her diploma on 3 different occasions. However, none of these diplomas showed that she was awarded “one-and-a-half PhD” as she had once boasted publicly about her extraordinary performance in her PhD oral examination.

3.                Ms. Ing-Wen Tsai and her presidential officers maintain that her doctoral degree and PhD thesis title were confirmed by a post on the LSE website on October 8, 2019. However, the thesis title mentioned in the web post is different from that in 1984 when she personally recorded in her resume. In addition, this web post misleadingly claimed that the UOL has confirmed Ms. Tsai was awarded a doctorate degree which, in fact, UOL has never officially confirmed!   

Our appeal:

To this day the UOL, which should be the degree awarding body for Ms. Ing-Wen Tsai’s doctorate in 1980s, continues to adopt a vague and ambiguous attitude due to diplomatic sensitivity. This has convinced us that the authenticity of Tsai’s doctorate and thesis is very questionable. Therefore, we, the people of Taiwan, who value integrity and fairness in our society at home and abroad, solemnly appeal to Ms. Ing-Wen Tsai to authorise a third independent party to submit the three diplomas already publicised to the British judicial system for verification. If Tsai fails to fulfil her responsibility in proving herself to possess authentic degree and thesis, she should resign from her Presidency immediately!