A Chinese professor adopted as the intellectual poster boy of the Communist party has come under fire for plagiarising the work of a dissident jailed by the government in the early 1990s.

[The source of the plagiarism here wasn’t dead (the preferred orientation in the west), but in jail… and maybe the plagiarist figured he’d never get out…]

Zhou Ye Zhong [the plagiarist], a professor at Wuhan University, is credited with much of the inspiration behind the current leadership's new ideological approach, with its emphasis on the "harmonious society".

He has lectured the Politburo and Communist party chief Hu Jintao and has been at the centre of the party's efforts to square its ideology with formerly taboo topics such as human rights, the rule of law and constitutional government.

But his position as Beijing's golden boy has started to tarnish after he was accused of plagiarism by Wang Tiancheng [the plagiarized], a former Beijing University professor who was jailed for five years in 1992 for attempting to form a rival political party.

[Five years, and then he got out and read ZYZ’s book…]

Mr Wang used an internet discussion board to denounce Mr Zhou's work, and has threatened to take legal action against him if an explanation is not forthcoming.

He told Reuters that his book, The Constitutional Interpretation of Republicanism, was quoted "word for word" in Mr Zhou's recently published works.

"He's risen to the top by repackaging fashionable terms - human rights, democracy, rule of law - for the party's ends," Mr Wang said. "But he reflects the emptiness of the party's ideology. They've got nothing and so he needs to raid the opposition camp for any new ideas."

The Youth Daily, a newspaper given leeway to report stories suppressed by the rest of China's tightly controlled media, further publicised Mr Wang's claim of plagiarism. But that debate has now been muted following an order from propaganda officials to end further discussion of the matter in the domestic media.

[China can just shut everyone up.]

Mr Zhou has made little attempt to defend himself, although in an interview with a Youth Daily journalist in November he hinted that because of Mr Wang's history of dissent it was not politically sound for the publishing house to leave his name in the accreditation notes.

[Classy, and a familiar move. Blaming your plagiarism on the person you plagiarized is a time-honored tradition.]

The propaganda department last week ordered Youth Daily to suppress a dissection of Mr Zhou's book by a liberal law professor, He Weifang, but discussions of the case have spread on the internet.

[Actually, China can’t just shut everyone up.]

Mr He said Mr Zhou took dozens of sections from Mr Wang and other liberal scholars without attribution. "[Mr Wang] strains very hard to make liberal political thought consistent with the official line, and that doesn't fit," Mr He told Reuters.

[Also in line with established plagiarist behavior -- copying from many sources.]