Chinese mathematician who killed boss after career flatlined following return from US given suspended death sentence
- Jiang Wenhua stabbed his supervisor Wang Yongzhen and told police he had been the victim of ‘vicious treatment’ at Fudan University in Shanghai
- The academic had been removed from the tenure track programme and given a series of short-term contracts
Jiang Wenhua, a researcher at Fudan University, was found guilty of murdering Wang Yongzhen, the head of the School of Mathematical Sciences, in June 2021.
“Jiang Wenhua premeditated the crime, employing brutal methods that led to grave consequences. He should be subjected to stringent punishment per the law,” a statement from the Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People’s Court posted on the social media platform Weibo said.
The court said Jiang, then aged 39, attacked Wang, his 49-year-old supervisor who was also the school’s party secretary, because of work-related grievances.
The case sparked debate about the treatment of junior academic staff. In a video that showed him being subdued by police, Jiang told officers: “I have been framed a lot of times and I have received vicious treatment in the department.”
Highly-educated China software engineer’s 16 years of hell on streets of New York
Jiang received a PhD in statistics from Rutgers University in the United States in 2009 and returned to China in 2011 to teach at Soochow University.
He was hired in 2016 as a researcher on Fudan’s tenure-track appointment system, according to the university.
But it said that he had failed an evaluation carried out in June 2019 two months before his contract expired and the maths department decided not to keep him in his role.
Under the tenure-track system, researchers undergo reviews for a tenured professorship. Those who do not pass have their contracts terminated, a process referred to as “up or out” in China.
Jiang was instead given a one-year contract, which was renewed at the end of 2020.
A post on the Shanghai-based news website Guancha published one day after the killing said some Chinese academics who had been abroad had struggled to develop their careers overseas and then had trouble readjusting when they returned to China.
The court ruling said Jiang had bought a knife with the intention of killing Wang and waited for an opportunity to seek revenge.
On the day of the killing, Jiang entered Wang’s office on the Fudan University campus and repeatedly stabbed Wang on his neck and torso. The victim was found dead at the scene of the killing.
After committing the crime, Jiang waited at the scene knowing that the police had been notified and confessed to officers, the court added.
Chinese victim of unsolved poisoning case dies, prompting sympathy and anger
The statement said Jiang had been diagnosed with recurrent depressive disorder and had limited criminal liability in the case.
But it said Jiang’s behaviour constituted the crime of intentional homicide and sentenced him to a two-year suspended death sentence and deprivation of political rights for life.
After two years, the death sentence will be commuted to life in prison.
