Top Chinese academic hits back at plagiarism claims over US-China trade war research
- Specialist in American affairs says he quoted – not copied – analyses and data in comments at an event last week
- Accuser says he was shocked to see his material referred to without proper attribution
A prominent Chinese specialist in American affairs has rejected claims that he plagiarised research on the roots of the China-US trade war at a symposium last week, saying he simply “quoted” the data to support his arguments.
In a statement published on social media platform WeChat on Monday, a user identified as Mu Feng accused Wu Baiyi, the head of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), of plagiarism.
Mu accused Wu of not attributing his research in remarks made at a CASS event on the trade war last Wednesday.
Mu claimed that the remarks drew on a research paper he published on June 2 called “Advanced Globalisation and the China-US Rivalry”.
Sampling historical data from Fortune Global 500 companies, Mu’s research traced the roots of the US-China trade war to the decline in traditional American manufacturing jobs over the past 60 years.
In his remarks, Wu referred to a large portion of the Fortune 500 data and the role of market fundamentalism in the US policymaking process, an element that was also part of Mu’s paper.
