A member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) has urged authorities to curb academic fraud by setting up a mechanism to check and punish those who commit the offense.

Legal judgment and punishment of those who commit academic frauds can serve as a warning to others, said CPPCC member Guo Chuanjie, at Friday's meeting of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee.

Guo is also a member of the Party Group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and secretary of the Party Committee of the University of Science and Technology.

Guo's remarks follow a series of academic frauds in the country, including the fabrication of the computer chips by Chen Jin of Shanghai Jiaotong University and fraudulent activities by Yang Jie of the Shanghai Tongji University.

He attributed increasing academic corruption to the failure to punish these frauds in a hard-handed manner.

Guo proposed that an expert team be formed with people who are "sainted in ethical terms, fair and objective in judgment, and kind in heart and hard in hand." The expert team will be able to handle and punish these academic irregularities in a transparent and open way, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 8, 2006)