Fu Ping's Interview with a Chinese Newspaper in USA

On July 3, 2013, Fu Ping was interviewed by Qiaobao, a Chinese language newspaper published in the USA, in which she answered some questions raised by her alma mater Suzhou University. The interview is originally in Chinese.

Qiaobao: Suzhou University accused you for falsifying academic credentials. They displayed your student registration and files at the school and proved that you had dropped out in March, 1982 and did not earn any degree there. Have you ever publicly stated that you have a Bachelor degree in Chinese Language and Literature from Suzhou University? 

Fu Ping: I rarely mentioned Suzhou University because I didn't obtain any degree there. In my social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc., I never included Suzhou University. In fact, in all places I have control, I never mention Suzhou University. 

But there are places that I have no control of. About 10 years ago, our company's marketing department has a girl from Malaysia. I told her that I did not graduate from Suzhou University. So she wrote on our page "post graduate degree." Because she thought "post graduate degree" could also mean "non degree" besides "masters graduate student." We made corrections right away and it was not on our company web site. But recently when our company changed web site, an program that was automatically fetching files made it visible again. I did not discover it in time. 

Right now there are many web sites, including Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, etc., all carried this incorrect information. I found out later that it was because their automated search feature. The real culprit of this academic credentials fraud is the automated search, not me. 

In fact, my business is in computers. I earned BS and MS in computer science in the US. I do not need a degree from Suzhou University for any of my work. It's not like a degree from Harvard, after all. 

Someone said that they obtained information from University of Illinois where I had worked to prove that I had claimed of possessing a degree from Suzhou University. But the information I do possess do not prove that. I have also inquired to University of Illinois. They told me that they have never told anyone that I had a degree from Suzhou University. I feel that those who are attacking me were misled. [Note: we do have evidence indicating otherwise.] 

Another place is a technological paper I wrote as the third author. The author's bio section of this paper stated that I earned a Bachelor of Chinese Language and Literature in 1983. As a matter of fact, I did not write that. I only published a technological paper. The author's bio was added by editors. 

Qiaobao: In your book, you said that in the fall of 1982, you "innocently walked across campus making preparations for graduation, someone sneaked up behind me, jammed a black canvas bag over my head ... escorted into a nearby car." Since you had already dropped out school that March, why were you walking on campus in the fall? 

Fu: This is a typo. If you read the whole passage, all the stories happened in the spring. The fall only occurred in this sentence. It was an error. 

In fact, I have corrected it as soon as I found this mistake. 

Qiaobao: You also mentioned in your memoir that you published a paper while you were in school, on the subject of female infanticide under the one-child policy. You were arrested and deported because of it. But Suzhou University said that all the graduation thesis in the Department of Chinese Literature were about literature or linguistics. They wouldn't be involved in sociology subjects such as infanticide. There were no teacher for this thesis of yours. How do you respond? 

Fu: Before graduation, I wanted to go to graduate school in journalism at Nanjing University. So I intended my thesis to be like a news report. In 1981, the one-child policy was going crazy in China and got my interest. With the permission from my adviser, I started interviewing people and then discovered the female infanticide problem in rural China. 

I heard a lot of stories from rural women and became their sounding board. In order to do this work, I had indeed spent a lot of time and missed a lot of classes. 

Then I wrote them down and showed my teacher. My teacher passed my article to his friend in Shanghai's Wenhui Daily. At that time I did not know where this paper reached, but heard later that it was handed higher and higher in the official hierarchy and reached the Party Central. 

This was not good news for the new leadership. Therefore I was arrested and locked up for 3 days. After the release, the police told me to leave Suzhou University and not tell anyone the reason. That's why my mother and I were insistent in dropping out of the school. 

Qiaobao: Who is the teacher who allowed you to write this article? 

Fu: It's not just one, but I cannot provide names. In fact, the person who approved my work no longer admits that. I don't think it's necessary to expose this. They are all my teachers and classmates. If they want to say I am lying, then let them say that. I know who I am and don't want to explain. 

Qiaobao: In your book you said that you experienced "finger checking" for pregnancy. This was strongly condemned by Suzhou University and your classmates. What happened there? 

Fu:  This is indeed my mistake. I wrote about "finger checking" to illustrate the difference between China's one-child policy and the population policy in the west. In 1981, getting pregnant in China could be illegal. Therefore there was checking with fingers. But the procedure was using one's own fingers to prove period, not allowing other people's fingers to enter. 

I told my coauthor Meimei Fox of this concept. But she did not write accurately. The illegal pregnancy checking was subjecting to those who have already given birth, not all females. It was written in the book as for all women, but not students of Suzhou University. 

But Chinese are not a precise language. It could be interpreted in different ways when viewed from different angles. It read like all female students in Suzhou University must submit to the checking. I discovered it later and corrected it on New York Times.
I feel sorry for this. I did not spot this mistake before the book went to press. Later Fang Zhouzi hyped on it and wrote it in a very dirty way. If this hurt the dignity of students in Suzhou University, I am willing to apologize. 

But the "finger checking" absolutely happened. It was not just me. Other articles have mentioned it too. I wrote it because I hope to raise the outside world's awareness of China's one-child policy. It was not meant to insult female students in Suzhou University. 

Qiaobao: You had participated in a literature organization called Red Maple Society. You said in the book that you were arrested and interrogated because an article published by the society. Suzhou University said that was a lie. What do you think? 

Fu: I had indeed not been taken into custody because of Red Maple Society. But in my book I used the word "arrest," which could mean "taking into custody" or "detain," it could also be understood as "stop." It was not as going into prison, but that they don't allow you to attend classes. They put several of you into a room, make you write confessions and expose each other. 

The Department of Chinese Literature had a student journal called Wu Gou. According to my memory, I was the editor-in-chief (主编) for Wu Gou, but not the ultimate decision maker (总编). Because I was the only girl in the society and the journal, they let me be the editor-in-chief, in charge of printing and logistics. Now some people say I wasn't the editor-in-chief. If they could tell me who was, I would like to correct that.
In January, 1979, Wu Gou published the article "The Confession of a Communist Party Member" by Liu Buchun. The article raised doubts on Communist Party and Communism. 

At that same time, Peking University, Tsinghua University and other 11 colleges co-founded the magazine This Generation. They reprinted an article from Wu Gou. Our journal sent a representative to Beijing to attend a meeting by This Generation. I don't remember who went, but it wasn't me. 

After arriving at Beijing, he didn't attend the meeting but went to the Great Hall of People to watch Deng Xiaoping receiving leaders of the Communist Youth League. There, Deng Xiaoping clearly stated that he wouldn't allow universities publish their underground journals. Afterwords, This Generation and Wu Gou all closed down. The school investigated and interrogated us. The Red Maple Society could not meet any more.

SCMP: "Heartbroken" Author Ping Fu Willing to Apologise for Inaccuracies in Memoir

The following report was published by South China Morning Post on July 1, 2013:

'Heartbroken' author Ping Fu willing to apologise for inaccuracies in memoir 

Trying to head off a lawsuit, Chinese American tells the Post she was willing to apologise for what her former university schoolmates and officials call 'falsehoods' in her book 

Wu Nan 

In many ways, Ping Fu embodies the American dream. The 55-year-old Chinese American entrepreneur and author is an important figure in the global 3-D printing industry, and she sits on US President Barack Obama’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 

But six months after she published a critically acclaimed memoir Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds, Fu, chief strategy officer of 3D Systems in the US, faces potential international lawsuits. Her alma mater, Soochow University in Suzhou, and some of her former schoolmates are threatening to take her to court for libel in China and the US. 

“Her book humiliated the image of China in the world and the reputation of Soochow University as a public education institution,” Chen Jinhua, director of the university’s news centre, told the South China Morning Post. University officials have joined hands with a group of former students, classmates of Fu’s from more than 30 years ago, to demand that she apologise for what they call “falsehoods” in her book, and stop all promotional activities related to it. 

“No society at any time should applaud success built upon lies,” Liu Biao, an official at the university’s president’s office, told a meeting of alumni at Soochow two weeks ago. “We will take further actions.” 

This is not the book's first controversy. Fu devoted chapters to her early life as the child of a persecuted intellectual family, growing up during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution period, between 1966 and 1976. She recounted heart-wrenching stories of being separated for years from her parents from the age of 10, and of being forced into child labour, starved, tortured, even gang-raped. 

Some of these claims, along with those she made in previous Western media interviews, were bitterly contested in China in the past months. Hundreds of angry comments and negative ratings were left on the Amazon.com page for her book, most by Chinese readers. Protest e-mails were sent to her publisher, her company and her associates. 

Tens of millions of Chinese were persecuted during the disastrous decade of chaos and violence, started by Mao Zedong in 1966 and ending soon after his death in 1976. The estimated death toll ranges from one million to 20 million. However, Fu's critics accused her of making up many of her sad personal stories to win sympathy and sell her book. Some, such as the controversial Chinese academic fraud-buster Fang Zhouzi, wrote detailed essays to prove that the abuses and atrocities she claimed couldn't possibly have happened. 

In 2010, Fu told US media NPR that she witnessed Red Guards execute a teacher by having her quartered by four horses, simply to frighten the children into submission. After Fang raised sharp questions about the veracity of this story, Fu admitted that this that traumatic event might not have taken place, and that her “emotional memory” might not be accurate. NPR has since removed the interview from its website. 

College years disputed 

Now, months after the previous storm of controversy seemingly cooled down, renewed criticism and legal threats from China are once more putting the high-flying executive on the defensive. The disputes have moved from her childhood history to her college years, starting in 1978, two years after the Cultural Revolution ended. 

Former classmates and teachers are not only challenging Fu’s self-claimed academic credentials, but also casting doubt over some of the most riveting events in her book. These often dealt with issues that remain sensitive in Sino-US relations to this day, including birth control, torture, freedom of the press and persecution by order of top Communist Party officials. 

Fu said she was willing to apologise for some of the inaccuracies in her book, which she blamed on memory failures or editing errors. She also said she would like to reconcile with the university to avoid a lawsuit. 

One anecdote in Fu's book seems to anger her critics in particular – that university officials used to check female students’ periods with their fingers to make sure they were complying with mandatory government rules on birth control. 

“I would like to issue an open apology for the description that appears about [Soochow University] conducting intrusive physical checks on all female students' periods for birth control purpose,” she said. Fu told the New York Times in February that the account was an error she had tried on several occasions to correct before publication. Instead of submitting to intrusive checks by officials, female students had to use their own fingers and show blood during their periods, Fu said.

As the leader of a student group called the Red Maple Society, according to the book, Fu had incurred the wrath of then-leader Deng Xiaoping after publishing a “daring and controversial article” criticising the Communist Party for corruption. According to her accounts, Deng, restored to power only a few years earlier, was visibly displeased after he read the article during a meeting with representatives from student publications. 

“University officials arrested and interrogated all the students who belonged to the magazine group,” she wrote. “As the editor in chief, I was held most responsible for the trouble. For punishment, I was given a black mark in my personal file.” 

But that was not the end of her political troubles. Fu also wrote that she was briefly kidnapped by unknown thugs and then banished from the university for doing research and writing a paper on infanticide in rural China, a barbaric side-effect of the one-child policy and people's preference for boys. 

Fu also wrote she was forced to leave school without graduating, and officials had told her to leave the country. She went to the US in 1984, studied at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and later transferred to the University of California in San Diego to study computer science. 

'It's just we remember differently' 

However, Soochow University officials have shown journalists dozens of documents including Fu's full academic records, to prove that she never conducted research or wrote a thesis on female infanticide, nor was she ever punished or arrested for political essays in student publications. 

“The so-called arrest and interrogation never happened. I am angry at her for lying about this,” said Ni Junqiang, Fu’s class adviser from 30 years ago. Now 63, Ni manages his own high-tech company in Suzhou. He said Fu frequently missed classes during her college years and on several occasions he recommended that the university give her demerits. 

Speaking to a Post reporter by telephone in late June, Fu conceded last week that some of the details in her book were not accurate. “There was no arrest or time in jail or prison for the Red Maple Society members. We did informing and confession.” 

She also added: “I wrote a memoir and this was my memory of what happened [30 years ago] and how I felt. If someone said they remember differently I’m not going to say they are wrong. It’s just we remember differently.” 

But the university’s investigation has nonetheless stirred up painful memories and ripped open old wounds. Liu Buchun, Fu's former schoolmate, said Fu stole his story about suffering political persecution for criticising the Communist Party. Liu said that he was the one who delivered a speech at a meeting of student party members in 1979, airing doubts over the party’s teachings. 

Liu, now a retired high school teacher, said he and several editors of a student magazine who published the speech suffered years of retribution in the form of demotions and lost opportunities. The consequences haunted their entire adult lives, Liu said. But Fu was not involved in either the writing or publication of the speech, nor was she punished for it, he told the Post. 

“Correcting the wrongs of the Cultural Revolution is necessary, but not by making up stories like Fu did,” Liu said. “Lies have no redemptive power. Self-glorifying lies are even more despicable.” 

'Heartbroken and deeply saddened' 

In the face of harsh criticism from China, Fu said in February that she was “shocked, heartbroken and deeply saddened by the smear campaign”. However, she has on different occasions retracted some of the statements she made to Western media. 

“When people are upset, you are touching on something sensitive. If people need to talk about the Cultural Revolution and by criticising me they can create some healthy discussion, that’s my contribution,” she said last week. 

But she admitted: “It also bothers me. Sometimes I'm confused. I'm not helping the ‘American side’ or ‘Chinese side’ to attack one other. 

“We should unite rather than divide; extreme opinion divides. I won’t fight with Soochow University. It will only hurt both of us.” 

Now a mother of an adult daughter and working for a South Carolina-based firm specialising in 3-D printing technology, Fu said she wished the debate over her memoir would calm down so she could focus on her responsibilities at home and at the company. 

“Creativity for us is about thinking out of the box exponentially, and innovation is imagination applied,” she said. “My new role is a perfect combination of creative destruction and pragmatic problem-solving, I love what I do: 3-D printing.”