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Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology has said it will set up an Office of Research Integrity to hold researchers to ethical academic standards in the wake of a major academic fraud scandal at the country’s top institution, National Taiwan University or NTU, which has severely damaged its research reputation. The office will create a database of different types of breaches of academic standards, including fraud and plagiarism. Taiwan’s Ministry of Education also announced an amendment to its regulations, forcing academics accused of academic fraud to relinquish honorary and monetary awards granted by the ministry, and return funds already granted.

Japan’s Ministry of Education is in the hot seat over revelations that it lobbied universities to hire its retiring officials, a practice known as amakudari (descent from heaven) which is officially banned in Japan. In late 2016, damning evidence emerged that the ministry attempted to conceal its involvement in the case of a retiring ministry official landing a job at Waseda University by distributing answers to anticipated questions so that everyone involved could coordinate a story of denial.

The recent rise of East Asian universities has greatly impressed the academic world. However, a number of terms have been used to describe the academic culture in East Asian universities, such as integrity, ethics, misconduct and even corruption. Academic culture has been cited as a significant impediment for East Asian higher education to reach a leading status in the world. The toxic academic culture is another expression of East Asia’s greatest challenge: universities have not yet figured out how to combine the 'standard norms' of Western higher education with traditional values.