UK Watchdog is an independent research group studying the University of London controversy of Republic of China in-exile President Tsai Ing-wen’s PhD award in 1984. Tsai submitted a tardy thesis, entitled Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Actions to the London School of Economics and Political Science in June 2019, thirty-five years late. Tsai refuses to release her oral examination viva report and neither school will even name her examiners. The academic firestorm the tardy thesis ignited has continued to smolder for four years. UK Watchdog volunteers have dug out and made public many email messages shedding light on the matter. In the latest chapter, UK Watchdog explores state-sponsored misinformation and exposes three LSE executives as agents of misinformation.
On August 8, 2020, Christina Lee asked the London School of Economics and Political Science three questions concerning Tsai Ing-wen’s PhD degree.
Rachel Maguire, Information and Records Manager, responded on October 23 that the LSE had received 39 Freedom of Information requests and “747 spam emails” within a two-week period about Tsai Ing-wen’s PhD thesis. Maguire replied that the LSE considered Lee’s request to be vexatious “for being part of the burden caused by all of those emails in such a short time period.”
“We have been made aware that there is the possibility that the LSE has been added to a list of targets to gain social credits in China. As such we believe that your request and the others we received in this time period have not been made for just the purpose of receiving information but for personal gain.”
When the LSE refusals to answer questions or provide information reached the Information Commissioner’s Office, the ICO took a hard view of the requests.
“The intent of these requests is clearly to try to add weight to theories around the falsification of President Tsai’s PhD, which have already been considered at length by the Commissioner and the Tribunal and found to be entirely lacking in substance, as well as to express dissatisfaction with the Commissioner’s decisions in these matters and cause deliberate disruption to the ICO’s services.”
On March 9, 2022, the What Do They Know website, designed to assist people making Freedom of Information Requests, adopted the ICO view on requests related to Tsai’s thesis expressing confidence in treating FOI requests as “mass misuse” akin to a “disinformation attack” rather than “misguided requests.” What Do They Know, operated by an outfit called MySociety, banned 108 user accounts, removed over 300 FOI requests from the WDTK website and deleted 1,640 comments.
On July 12, 2022, based on the LSE, ICO, and WDTK actions, the British Library refused a FOI request seeking information on how the British Library was able to list Tsai Ing-wen’s thesis in its EThOS online catalog of theses in 2015, four years before the thesis appeared on a library shelf in June 2019. The library CEO, Roly Keating, took personal interest in the EThOS request and conducted an Internal Review.
“Taken together my review of your request has therefore again concluded that it is repetitive, lacking in serious purpose, and is likely to be part of a concerted and/or state sponsored disinformation campaign designed to harass the President and government of Taiwan, the UK public sector in general, and the British Library in particular.”
UK Watchdog asks the question, who provided state-sponsored disinformation?
On June 4, 2019, Hwan Lin was able to pry a candid answer from a librarian at the LSE Library about Tsai Ing-wen’s thesis. “LSE Library has never had a copy of this thesis.”
Lin further learned two other libraries never had the thesis. “Senate House apparently never received a copy and the IALS are unable to find their copy.”
Lin followed up with queries about why acquisition records and a thesis abstract were also missing.
One week later, Danny O’Connor, Media Relations Manager, was assigned to help formulate the response to Lin’s questions. O’Connor jumped in immediately and warned, “Agents of the PRC working in the University of North Carolina.”
Hwan Lin is a professor at the University of North Carolina where he has never accepted any travel invitations to visit China. Changqing Cao, a Taiwan independence activist, is also at the University of North Carolina and may also have been a target of O’Connor’s remark. Cao had appeared on True Voice of Taiwan program the day before questioning Tsai Ing-wen’s thesis. Dennis Peng, host of the internet talk show, is currently living in self-exile in California to avoid imprisonment in Taiwan over a criminal defamation complaint made against him by President Tsai.
The same day, O’Connor beamed the government controlled “Taiwan Central News Agency have just been in touch with this as well.”
Clive Wilson, Enquiry Services Manager at the LSE Library, was busy dealing with Hwan Lin’s information requests. “I’ve just sent two very polite holding replies although Professor Lin’s chasing is bordering on the rude—although I do appreciate how important the issue is.”
O’Connor’s first day on the thesis assignment saw him busy drafting a media statement which he supplied on June 12 to the Taiwan People’s Daily News to rebut a story questioning the validity of Tsai’s thesis.
After O’Connor sent out his media release to Taiwan, Shih Fang-long, Tsai’s personal representative at the LSE, praised O’Connor and explained the importance of defending Tsai’s degree award.
“This is very important for alumna President Tsai Ing-wen and the school’s reputation as they have been under the irrational attack by anti-Tsai camp during the nomination election in her own political party—DPP.”
“To be brief, the anti-Tsai camp includes: (1) Taiwanese nationalists (who is against Tsai’s policy beyond Chinese and Taiwanese nationalisms toward democracy); (2) Taiwanese independence fundamentalists (who is against Tsai’s policy in maintaining the status quo with China); (3) Church members (who is against Tsai’s government which has recently passed same-sex marriage law).”
On June 13, 2019, O’Connor responded to Hwan Lin using the British Library’s EThOS listing as proof the thesis had been properly examined by the University of London. “They clearly received their copy because otherwise it would not have been processed and appear on their catalogue—and from there on the British Library catalogue.”
In July 2019, O’Connor acknowledged that the PRC was not behind all of the FOI requests. “This issue is being led by political opponents of President Tsai and anti-Tsai online activists.”
“It is likely there will be ongoing enquiries from resolute opponents, who may find any explanation hard to accept.”
In August 2019, O’Connor admitted the vast majority of FOI requests were from the Taiwanese public. “There have been very few press ones overall (about two or three). Mostly its from Taiwanese members of the public.”
In September 2019, O’Connor provided more insight into where the controversy was originating by answering a question asked by Marcus Cerny, Director of the PhD Academy. “This individual is probably linked to the other Taiwanese citizen activists who are pointing out every perceived discrepancy.”
In October 2019, O’Connor alerted Kevin Haynes, Head of Legal Team, that “there is a conspiracy theory going around parts of Taiwan that the President never got her PhD from LSE.”
Two days after the alert to Haynes, O’Connor had updated information on the conspiracy theory. “They are effectively part of a fake news campaign in Taiwan that LSE shouldn’t be getting involved with.”
Clive Wilson also knew from a chat with Shih Fang-long that the controversy was domestic and not originating in China. “Apparently the Taiwan press and the opposition party are trying to relate this to the incident over Saif gaddafi and the Libyan donation.”
Wilson changed his tune four days later in an email to the British Library, suddenly there was a foreign influence to the story. “I don’t know if you know it or not, but Ing-Wen Tsai is the current President of Taiwan so some Chinese journalists are making a big deal about her thesis being missing.”
Christopher Hughes, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at LSE, chimed in that “it is certainly possible that someone or some organization with bad intentions has taken the thesis from the library.”
Wilson was back in the flow of emails with his own bit of misinformation. To disguise the the fact that Tsai had not given the LSE permission to scan for download her personal copy of the thesis provided to the LSE Library in June 2019, Wilson offered up an alternative explanation. “Due to excessive interest we will not digitise it, although researchers will be very welcome to request it in our Special Collections Reading Room.”
Hughes lauded Wilson. “It is an issue that is being dramatized and distorted for political reasons.”
O’Connor was in the loop between Hughes and Wilson and offered his own thoughts. “I would be amazed if the Guardian or NYT followed up with a story beyond a short, ‘oops, how embarrassing that they lost her PhD’. If our records say she graduated they should take that as confirmation. (Separately, ‘panda huggers’!)”
UK Watchdog notes that the ICO had already determined that the LSE lacked the necessary records to confirm President Tsai’s degree. “As the degree-awarding body, it is logical to consider that it would be the University that has the records pertaining to President Tsai’s examination—and the Commissioner has already established that these records are, as a matter of fact, held by the University of London.”
On January 11, 2022, the UL finally admitted in a What Do They Know response that it never had a copy of the examined thesis. “The University of London has not published this thesis as no physical copy of the thesis was received from the examiners.”
This admission was contrary to Danny O’Connor’s assertions. In response to Hwan Lin’s query about why Tsai’s thesis was not searchable in the UL library system, O’Connor drafted a reply and circulated it within the LSE for comments. “You state that Clive Wilson and his colleagues said the ‘PhD thesis has never been received in 1984 by Senate House Library and IALS library’ in their initial response. This information does not appear to be correct, apologies for the confusion.”
“Colleagues have made further enquiries and Senate House Library records do indicate that a copy was received. Senate House also confirmed they sent their copy of the thesis to the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) 35 years ago.”
Marcus Cerny commented. “If I recall, the thesis was actually sent to IALS in 2011.”
“I would keep the date out of it and just say that Senate House Library confirmed they sent it to IALS.”
Meanwhile, Lin sought Wilson’s permission to use his name in an article Lin was writing on the thesis validity. Wilson checked with O’Connor who drafted a statement for Wilson refusing to allow his name to be cited in Lin’s article. Then O’Connor grabbed at the idea of trying to get Lin in trouble at the University of North Carolina. “I might copy in his department head from his university, for information.”
On July 2, 2019, O’Connor replied to Lin, and his department head, O’Connor used the statement he prepared for Wilson, although he followed Cerny’s advice and left off the 2011 date, a material fact which leaves a reader with a false impression of the thesis history.
Undeterred, Lin responded with a precise request. “As this event involves public interests, I hereby ask you for the exact date when Ing-wen Tsai sent in her thesis.”
Clive Wilson jumped in with an email to O’Connor. “Of course he is going to love it when we say we are not digitising it.” The reason being that Tsai had not yet given the LSE permission to do so.
O’Connor emailed Rachael Maguire about Lin. “I’ll be honest. I’m in no rush to reply to Hwan Lin. He has proven himself to be a bad faith actor in most of his dealings.”
Two weeks later Wilson emailed Lin with the news about no digital copy of the thesis but covered for Tsai’s refusal to give the LSE consent with an excuse. “It does not currently appear on LSE theses online as you suggest. This is purely a workflow issue as different teams are responsible for the different systems and it will be included there also.”
Wilson also noted a change in the LSE Library records. “A system error showed Dr Tsai’s supervisor as the second author. This has now been removed. Dr Tsai is the sole author.”
In August 2019, O’Connor repeated his bad faith accusation against Lin. “Both the library and media relations have had many exchanges with Hwan Lin on this topic. He does not appear to be acting in good faith in any of his correspondence.”
On October 1, 2019, President Tsai’s office in Taipei, likely Alex Huang, emailed Clive Wilson with an English language copy of Hwan Lin’s report on Tsai’s thesis and PhD degree award. “I would like to share the English version of Lin’s report with you. Lin’s accusation of LSE begins from page 26, which I believe is quite ridiculous. Please let me know what you have in mind about this.”
O’Connor sent out a Dear Colleagues email complaining about Lin’s report. “I haven’t read it fully—It is long, rambling, incoherent and moves from Gaddafi to accusations against Fang-long and to repeated accusations that I am “lying”, among other things.”
UK Watchdog quotes the Lin report. “This investigation’s search results prove that the LSE Research Support Services library assistant [REDACTED] was correct and that LSE public relations head Mr. D.O. was clearly attempting to lie and cover up for Tsai Ing-wen.”
The evidence supports Lin’s findings and not O’Connor’s version of events. Two emails sent by the UL to the LSE in July 2015 and June 2019, respectively, did not confirm Tsai’s PhD degree. Further, the What Do They Know response in January 2022 by the UL that the thesis was never received by Senate House Library contradicts O’Connor’s incorrect response to Lin’s FOI request.
O’Connor kept up his rant against Lin through internal LSE email chats. “As frustrating as this is, I’m not sure it will do much good to start issuing detailed denials, or to engage with Hwan Lin. He seemed to be a somewhat vindictive individual throughout the whole process.”
Wilson joined in with a personal attack on Lin. “One hopes his own doctoral research was of a higher standard than this report.”
Marcus Cerny was ready to tackle the Lin report. “Thanks Danny, I have read it and it doesn’t raise anything new….However, the addition of personal accusations of lying against identified individuals is something we haven’t responded to and we should keep an eye on this to make sure that these are addressed if necessary.”
Although President Tsai provided the LSE Library with a photocopy of her personal copy of the thesis the school repeatedly told the public that she had provided a facsimile of the thesis. However, the two are not the same thing.
Determined to get some truthful answers, Lin traveled to London in August 2019 and spent three days at the LSE Library reading and inspecting the photocopy of Tsais’ personal copy submitted in June.
Clive Wilson returned from vacation to learn that Lin had been to the library. Concerned with what Lin may have learned Wilson asked questions about Lin’s visit. “I’ve asked colleagues to give me what information they can about when he came in and what he asked to see.”
On October 2, 2019, Kevin Haynes learned that the thesis copy at the LSE Library and the digital copy on file at Taiwan Central National Library were not identical. O’Connor responded to Haynes and copied Wilson and Cerny. “I don’t think either copy is the final thesis submitted in 1984. It was always her personal copy from 2019.”
On October 8, 2019, O’Connor issued a public statement, admitting for the first time that the LSE copy of the thesis was a “facsimile of her personal copy.”
The next day O’Connor expressed his belief that those who questioned the validity of Tsai’s PhD degree award were “trolls.” One of O’ Connor’s email recipients answered, “I agree that we shouldn’t feed the trolls.”
Richardson Reports 
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