China would take tough measures to severely punish academic falsifications, said Chinese Minister Xu Guanhua of Science and Technology on the sidelines of the ongoing annual session of the 10th National People's Congress.

"We will severely deal with any case of academic falsification whenever it is discovered," Xu said, after attending a panel discussion held by the delegation group of east China's Jiangsu Province.

China is drafting and improving relevant policies and regulations regarding scientific and technological evaluation and rewarding in order to avoid the "scandal of Hwang Woo-suk" of the Republic of Korea (ROK).

The recent scandal surrounding ROK stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk has rocked China's academic community, and added fuel to a fierce debate over the country's so-called science police with Fang Zhouzi being the most famous one.

Fang runs the New Threads website exposing scientific plagiarism and pseudoscience -- research that appears scientific but does not follow the scientific method.

According to agenda of the annual session, Xu will, together with other senior government officials, give a news conference on building an innovation-oriented country on March 10 in Beijing.

To encourage science and technology innovations, China has formulated and published policies and measures totaling 60 items.

(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2006)