TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — During a hearing at the Legislative to address next year’s Ministry of Education budget, Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) brought up the recent controversy surrounding President Tsai Ing-wen’s doctoral dissertation.

During the budget hearing on Wednesday (Oct. 30), Chen asked Minister of Education Pan Wen-Chung (潘文忠) to hear criticism of Tsai’s thesis. According to Chen, there are at least 20 instances in Tsai’s 1984 dissertation in which she “self-plagiarized” her own earlier works without proper citation, and Chen suggests that the ministry should conduct a proper inquiry.

Chen claims that Tsai published some academic articles in Mandarin prior to her graduation from the London School of Economics and that some portions of the articles were translated into English and included in her dissertation without proper attribution. Chen alleges that this constitutes “self-plagiarism” and violates academic ethics.

In response, Pan said that the ministry would hear Chen's complaint and follow up on the appropriateness of an inquiry, according to proper procedure. However, Pan noted that while the ministry will review relevant documents and allegations, any investigation conducted would be in accordance with regulations that were in place during the time period in question, reports Liberty Times.