Tsinghua confirms prominent student's PhD quashing
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China's leading university has confirmed it was forced to strip the PhD of one of its former top students for academic fraud close to two years ago.

The news of Ye Xiaoxin having his academic credentials pulled first appeared in a publication known as "Retraction Watch" on October 19, 2018. Tsinghua University has since confirmed the report.

"Tsinghua University holds a zero-tolerance attitude towards academic misconduct," the school said in a statement. "(Tsinghua) will further strengthen its academic integrity to prevent such incidents from happening again," the statement added.

Tsinghua Univerity's Shenzhen campus [File Photo: VCG]

Tsinghua Univerity's Shenzhen campus (File Photo: VCG)

Ye Xiaoxin earned his PhD in materials science and engineering from Tsinghua Univerity's Shenzhen campus in 2015. This was the same year he was honored as the Univerity's 20th academic rookie. However, the school has now confirmed that it withdrew his PhD in 2017 after his thesis advisor discovered issues such as image manipulation, duplication, deceptive authorship and other misconduct in 16 of his academic papers he authored as a graduate student.

Despite uncovering the academic fraud, his thesis advisor has also been punished by Tsinghua University for negligence.