YOUNG Chinese actor Zhai Tianlin announced Thursday in an apology letter posted on his social media account that he has resigned from a postdoctoral position at Peking University due to a recent academic dishonesty scandal.

“I did everything out of vanity, which made me lose myself,” the 32-year-old actor wrote in the letter.

Zhai, who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy with a Ph.D. last summer, was found by netizens to have published zero academic papers during his doctoral studies and to have plagiarized 40 percent of a short essay.

The scandal broke out last week after his earlier live broadcast video went viral online. In the video, he appeared ignorant of the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), an established Chinese database of essays, dissertations and theses. Meanwhile, the actor posted an admission letter for a postdoctoral position at Peking University on his social media account Jan. 31.

Beijing Film Academy launched an investigation into Zhai’s academic misconduct Monday and Peking University also announced that it will wait for the results of the academy’s investigation before deciding if its offer to Zhai will remain.

On Wednesday, netizens found that one-third of Zhai’s master dissertation was taken directly from actor Chen Kun’s bachelor dissertation from 2000. Zhai’s National Higher Education Entrance Examination score was also found to be only 348, instead of the 580 score he boasted.

The scandal doesn’t ebb as netizens decry not only academic fraud but also what they call “a plaguing woe of academic corruption” where some higher education institutes give the green light to those who are powerful or rich, Global Times reported.

According to the newspaper, netizens have since begun to dig up a number of other issues. They’ve raised doubts about the capabilities of Zhai’s Ph.D. adviser Chen Yi, whose resume on the academy’s website shows he only holds a bachelor’s degree but is tasked with tutoring Ph.D. students. The website also shows that Chen, 62, has only published co-authored books and has no independent works.

Netizens have also disparaged Zhang Hui, the head of the academy’s performance school, who married an actress 24 years his junior. Zhang, 50, directed and co-starred in movie “A Paper Marriage” with his wife Liu Xiyang. With a weak plot and poor storytelling, the 2018 movie received negative reviews, scoring 3 out of 10 points on Chinese movie-reviewing website Douban. The movie, which earned only 750,000 yuan (US$110,975) in box-office revenue, was found by netizens to be funded by the academy’s film studio, leading many to suspect that Zhang was abusing the academy’s fund.

Global Times quoted Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, as saying that many people believe an academic degree is an arduous quest, but some people with power and fame can be conferred such an honor without efforts.

Boasting himself a straight-A student from childhood, Zhai has becoming popular in recent years after appearing in hit TV dramas, such as “White Deer Plain,” “The Advisers Alliance” and “Angel Heart.”(Cao Zhen)