Overstating credentials a lack of authenticity

As the dust has yet to settle on the controversy over Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) supposed doctorate, the Legislative Yuan has chosen the perfect timing to amend Chiang’s educational credentials in his former legislator’s profile.

The label of Doctor of Juridical Science (S.J.D.) that persisted for years was subsequently amended to the lesser degree of Juris Doctor (J.D.) overnight. Chiang holds an Master of Laws and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania’s law school, and he and the Taipei City Government say the S.J.D. label was a translation error by a Legislative Yuan contractor. Obfuscation and blame-shifting really is the gift that keeps on giving.

It does not matter if a politician holds a doctorate, whether a legislator, mayor or even president. John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and US President Donald Trump — US presidents of past and present — never earned a doctorate, and I doubt Americans felt ashamed of the presidents’ lack of one.

So one does wonder about where the Taiwanese obsession with political figures having a doctorate comes from. Never mind the large number of politicians brandishing doctorates of dubious veracity from Chinese universities; even a genuine, bona fide doctorate proves little.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲) holds a doctorate in law from the renowned University of Munich in Germany. One would assume that someone with that background should possess a better grasp of the law than an undergraduate, yet back in 2024, she interpreted the legislators’ power to question the premier as a “top-down relationship.”

Anyone who has taken a close look at the shoddy bills Weng has proposed would hardly consider them to uphold the sanctity of the law, but rather undermining it. So much for being the holder of a prestigious doctorate.

What is intriguing is not whether Chiang holds a doctorate, but the more fundamental issue of whether he has been honest about his highest degree. Former US president Barack Obama holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, which he received in 1991. Even though the word “doctor” appears in the title, the convention among US lawyers is that J.D. holders do not refer to themselves as “Dr.” While running for president, Obama did not style himself that way, and no news outlet ever called him “Dr. Obama.”

The “Silicon Valley lawyer” Chiang — who spent more than a decade in the US — should know that he cannot and should not parade his “Dr.” status in the Taiwanese political arena. Otherwise, it is inevitable that he would be suspected of a political chicanery. Even if the title was born from media attention, a politician of integrity would have jumped at the first opportunity to set the record straight.

Allowing the charade to continue is deception by omission, and the same applies to Chiang’s intransigence in the face of calls by Kuo Yi-hsi (郭貽熹) — son of the late army general Kuo Li-po (郭禮伯) — for a DNA test to settle whether Chiang’s father, former KMT vice chairperson John Chiang (蔣孝嚴), is in fact Kuo’s son rather than that of former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), as he claims.

Honesty truly is the best policy. It does not matter whether Chiang holds a doctorate or descends from the Chiang bloodline, because neither has a bearing on his academic ability or competence as a politician. However, given that he has long cultivated the political persona of a “Dr.” and a Chiang descendant, the verdict on whether he is an upright and honest politician lies in the authenticity of these two identities.

Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired associate professor at National Hsinchu University of Education.