CAS official fired amid sex scandal claims

An official from an academic institute has been dismissed after allegations of sexual misconduct with an underling surfaced online.

Wang Wen, vice director of the Kunming Institute of Zoology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), "has been removed from his post … due to an anonymous report revealing his improper conduct," announced the CAS institute in Yunnan province on Wednesday on its website.

The announcement states that the institute received the allegations against Wang on December 27, 2013 and Wang was removed from all of his posts on January 9.

The institute has reported to CAS and Wang is now under investigation, reported China News Service.

The announcement came after screenshots from video footage went viral on Tuesday, in which a naked man in a hotel room was reported to be Wang, while an apparently naked woman lies in a bed. A two-minute video uploaded to video site Tudou also shows the same naked man in the room, chatting with a woman wearing a blue dress.

The person uploading the pictures on online forum tianya.cn also posted pictures of hotel receipts and an injured leg of a female. The caption on the picture said "Wang Wen used a beer bottle to hurt the victim's leg."

The institute statement did not say that the punishment was related to the alleged sex scandal, however accusations against Wang were repeatedly posted online since January 5, as the same whistle-blower accused him of forcing a female employee of his into a sexual relationship in exchange for her post at the institute. He was also accused of beating and threatening the woman during their relationship.

Dong Shaomou, a law professor at the Northwest University of Politics and Law, told the Global Times that the accusations remain questionable judging from existing evidence.

"The injuries on the leg look bloody, but they seem to have been deliberately made to look more serious afterward," said Dong.

"The receipts might also support suspicions that the sex scandal was actually a trap as it's unlikely he would keep them as evidence of an affair," he noted.

Wang's dismissal has provoked another round of criticism targeting CAS and Chinese academia, despite the circumstances not being fully known.

"Understandably, Net users will vent their discontent and anger online, especially after it's been revealed CAS had involvement in multiple academic fraud cases. Similar sex scandals also concerned scholars apart from officials. But I hope people can remain rational when they want to point out social problems," Dong said.

Some online posts described Wang as being the "Lei Zhengfu of Kunming." Lei was the former Party chief of Beibei district of Chongqing who was dismissed after a similar sex scandal was revealed in November 2012.