Fraud programmer deserves punishment

No, not in the name Hua Mulan. How can anybody, leave alone a researcher, misuse the name of legendary Chinese heroine Mulan.

Some reports on Jan 15 talked about a new programming language, Mulan, being independently developed by a Chinese programmer called Liu Lei, which, he claimed, could be used to connect electronic devices, from mobile phones to televisions, and allow them to "communicate with each other", promoting the internet of things.

Reports that followed called Mulan a breakthrough in modern computer science, equating it with C++ and Python.

However, Mulan's glory was short-lived. On Jan 17, Liu issued an apology online, admitting that he "exaggerated" the abilities of Mulan, which is just good enough to teach elementary school students basic coding. He also admitted that it was developed on the open-source compiler of common programming language Python.

On Sunday, the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, listed Liu's mistakes and announced his suspension pending an investigation. But the fact that Liu used lies to promote the program is clear and therefore should be penalized.

Such academic frauds could hurt the future of China's scientific research. Had Liu's fraud not been discovered, the authorities might have been misled into believing he had really developed a new programming language and given him funding support.

Also, the credit and reputation of Chinese scientists would have suffered. Although it was Liu who is at fault, the institute he works for, or even CAS, has to shoulder part of the blame. If Liu goes unpunished, foreign research agencies will lose faith in other Chinese scientists, assuming they all helped cover up Liu's mistakes.

That's why Liu deserves exemplary punishment to make it clear that hard work is the only way to success in science and technology research.