(FILE)

Shi Yuanchun, a retired professor and former president of the Beijing Agricultural University (predecessor of today's China Agricultural University), has been mired in a scandal for academic fraud and plagiarism.

In an open letter written by six persons including four professors at the China Agricultural University, Shi is accused of plagiarizing other people's work between 1987 and 1995. The letter says that four major academic achievements listed on Shi's application to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) for academicians were actually accomplished by other people.

Responding to that, Shi said the letter was "a complete libel that should bear legal responsibility." He demanded the people who wrote the letter apologize immediately.

Shi, 80, graduated from the Department of Agronomy of Beijing Agricultural University in 1953, and finished graduate studies at the Department of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Chemistry from the same university in 1956. As a famous pedologist in China, Shi was elected an academician of the CAS in 1991, the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1994, and the Third World Academy of Sciences in 1995. He was president of Beijing Agricultural University from 1987 to 1995 and vice president of the China Association of Science and Technology from 1996 to 2001.