Fudan party secretary was killed on campus suspected of system injustice teachers stabbing uprising

The incident triggered public opinion, and public opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of the suspect standing up to the injustice system, while officials quickly blocked the official website of Fudan University’s mathematics department and the personal information of the person involved. Academics say that the cruel promotion system in mainland universities in recent years has led to nepotism and academic fraud, and eventually led to tragedy.

The 49-year-old party secretary of Fudan University’s School of Mathematics, Wang Yongzhen, was stabbed in the neck and killed Monday afternoon (7). Wang Yongzhen was announcing his termination of employment to Jiang Wenhua at the time.

After the incident, the university quickly shut down the official website of the College of Mathematics on the grounds of network maintenance, and even the biography of the deceased Wang Yongzhen was blocked from the entire network. Even the former employer of the suspected culprit, Jiang Wenhua’s School of Mathematics at Soochow University, quickly deleted information related to him.

But the incident is still hotly debated online. Some netizens say that while the victims of recent socially motivated bloodbaths in China are mostly innocent children and passersby, Jiang Wenhua embodies the fury of a scholar, defying the party stick with precision but without scouring the innocent. Even some lawyers believe that in the context of the lack of legal system and the scarcity of fairness, forcing the hand that originally held the pen to pick up a knife, natural law justice is also a helpless choice.

The university science professor, who requested anonymity, told this reporter that in recent years, key universities in China have introduced returnee doctors and post-docs to teach on a large scale, setting high research goals, the main one being to successfully apply for funding projects from the National Science Foundation of China, and to dismiss them if they are not successful, the so-called “no promotion, no departure” model.

Professor Luo said: it has two kinds, a kind of non-promotion that is lower. It is the western universities, especially some relatively poor schools, it will introduce some PhD, give the treatment of associate professor, they must be selected in the fourth year on the associate professor. If they can’t, they will be demoted to lecturer. It is the non-promotion that leaves, generally only in 985 and 211 kind of universities inside. After those doctors come to the school, in 6 years can not get the project of the National Endowment Committee, it will not be evaluated as an associate professor, the school, you will be dismissed.

But in the domestic nepotistic environment, Professor Luo said, this can lead to some scholars’ applications being crowded out, making many teachers “unemployed” after six years of employment.

Professor Luo said: In the natural sciences, compared to the humanities and social sciences, it is a little better. If the Chinese choose their own, there is inevitably nepotism, but in international journals, it is relatively transparent.

Another professor, Mr. Liu, pointed out that in addition to the serious nepotism in the mainland academic community, the “promotion or leave” model has given rise to the problem of academic fraud. For example, teachers are assessed by the number of papers published in core journals and the number of funded projects they have applied for within six years. But in China, without power resources, it is very difficult for scholars to publish papers or apply for projects, and the vast majority of scholars are unable to do so through the right path.

Professor Liu said: how many core journals published papers, how many national projects, provincial and ministerial level projects, due if not complete the achievement of dismissal. Now the situation of researchers is not as good as the administrative staff and political counselors. The problem is that many journals interpersonal relationships are the key role, so now many young teachers are forced to find resources as much as possible, worshiping those who control the journal’s big brother. There is no relationship to have money to do, the industry standard 70,000, 80,000 are available, the low are 30,000, 50,000.

On June 7, 2021, after learning of his dismissal, 39-year-old Jiang Wenhua stabbed the secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Mathematics to death in the college office. (Jiang Wenhua’s file photo)

Sources from the School of Mathematics at Fudan University point out that the suspect, Jiang Wenhua, had high academic ability, graduated from Fudan in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree and later received a PhD in statistics from Rutgers University in the U.S. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institutes of Health, and was also the recipient of the first Fudan President’s Award.

After Jiang transferred from Soochow University to the Fudan School of Mathematics, he was allegedly suppressed by Wang Yongzhen, which led to restrictions on his application for projects and assessment of his associate professorship. One of the reasons for the pressure was that Jiang Wenhua failed the political examination. But this claim has not been confirmed by Fudan University. At the time of the case, the fourth inspection team of the central government was inspecting Fudan University.

Our reporter repeatedly called the publicity department and organization department of Fudan University, but no one answered the phone. The Department of Personnel of the Ministry of Education also refused to comment and denied that the deceased Wang Yongzhen was a cadre under the direct control of the Ministry of Education.

The Ministry of Education Personnel Department: I can’t answer that. He was not appointed by our personnel, he was a cadre managed by the party committee of the school. What else to ask our news department, well, because accepting interviews it is regulated.

According to Weibo hot search and WeChat friends circle, Jiang Wenhua’s stabbing of the party secretary won almost one-sided applause, and many people felt sympathy for him. But some lawyers pointed out that encouraging violent revenge is a very dangerous tendency, which shows that all sections of the society have become very sick.

According to incomplete statistics, more than a dozen vicious killings and injuries have occurred recently across the mainland. In the past week alone, last Saturday (5) a man in Anhui hacked and killed passersby causing 6 deaths and 14 injuries; on the same day, a man in Sichuan killed two people in a barber store; last Thursday (3), a man in Guangxi stabbed and injured people in the community resulting in 2 deaths.