Thesis Rules at China Medical University, Shenyang: 查重, Blind Review and 答辩

China Medical University in Shenyang, Liaoning, runs a large English-taught medical programme alongside its Chinese-language degrees, and it publishes its graduate thesis rules as a set of numbered regulations rather than as advice. That is good news for you, because it means most of the thresholds below are written down and quotable.

A note on identity first. This guide is about the mainland China Medical University in Shenyang, at cmu.edu.cn. There is a separate China Medical University in Taichung, Taiwan, with a near-identical English name. Their rules are unrelated. Check the domain on any document someone sends you.

The law changed on 1 January 2025

The 学位法 (xuéwèi fǎ, Academic Degrees Law) came into force on 1 January 2025 and repealed the 1980 学位条例. Most thesis advice you will find online predates it.

Three parts of it matter directly to you:

• Article 37 lets your degree-granting institution refuse to award, or revoke, a degree where the thesis is found to involve ghostwriting (代写), plagiarism (剽窃) or fabrication (伪造). This applies to degrees already awarded.
• Article 40 gives you a right to 学术复核 (academic review) if you disagree with an academic evaluation from reviewers, a defence committee or a results assessment. The university must reconvene experts and decide within 30 days, and that decision is final.
• Article 44 states that overseas applicants are awarded degrees under the same academic requirements and procedures as everyone else. If you are an international student, there is no separate, softer standard.

查重: the number to memorise

CMU's research degree thesis review procedure, revised in 2023, sets the similarity check (查重, chá chóng) rule plainly: total text similarity must not exceed 20%, calculated after the system excludes work you have already published under your own name.

Two practical details cost students their graduation slot every cycle:

• You get a maximum of two attempts on the platform. Treat the first submission as final, not as a draft run.
• The autumn cycle notice requires you to strip your name, your supervisor's name and your institutional affiliation from the file you upload, and to include the literature review and the reference list. Upload errors are your responsibility, not the office's.

Blind review: three experts, four possible grades

Before any defence, your thesis goes to three experts in the same or a closely related discipline.

Each reviewer returns one of four grades:

If every grade is A or B you pass to the defence stage. If you disagree with the outcome, you can appeal with your supervisor's and department's backing, which sends the thesis to two further experts. To succeed, all the additional opinions must be A or B.

The rules also bite upward. Two D-graded theses from the same supervisor within three years ends that supervisor's right to supervise graduate students, with reapplication permitted after three years.

On money: the university pays the three expert fees for your first review. Repeat reviews and appeals are at your own cost, as are all reviews for applicants who have already graduated.

Initial review and the internal re-review

Before external review there are two internal gates, set out in the initial review standard. You submit an initial review evaluation form, your training handbook, your original research records, and the thesis draft. The panel is 3 to 5 reviewers at associate professor rank or above for a master's, and 5 to 7 for a doctorate, with at least two of five from basic science fields where the discipline is clinical.

They assess design, academic significance, innovation, structure, methodology and writing quality, and also the authenticity and completeness of the experimental data in your original records. Keep your lab books in a state you would be content to hand over.

A university-wide re-review (校内复审) follows before your thesis is cleared for external evaluation.

The defence (答辩)

The defence implementation rules set committee composition by degree type.

Every committee has a chair and a secretary.

Your supervisor must attend the defence but cannot be a committee member. Do not plan your defence on the assumption that they will speak for you.

Passing requires the agreement of at least two-thirds of all committee members. If you fail, master's candidates may reapply within four years of enrolment; academic doctoral candidates within six years; professional doctoral candidates within one year.

What the calendar actually looks like

CMU publishes a dated timetable for each cycle. Deadlines shift year to year, so use your own cycle's notice rather than this table, but the autumn 2025 notice shows the shape and the compression:

That is roughly three months from application to defence, with the similarity check ten days after the application deadline. Working backwards from November will not save you.

Language, and what applies to international students

The 2019 revision of CMU's thesis writing standard is the document to read if you are an international student:

• Graduate theses should generally be written in Chinese.
• International students on academic degrees may write in English, but must include a Chinese abstract (中文摘要).
• International students who enrolled from 2017 onwards on a clinical medicine professional master's must write and defend in Chinese.

The international master's admissions page sets the language ladder underneath this: professional degree applicants need HSK level 4 before enrolment, and academic degree applicants must pass HSK level 3 before graduation. Programmes run three years.

For undergraduates, CMU's international programme outlines describe the six-year English-taught clinical medicine degree, a five-year stomatology degree and a five-year Chinese-taught clinical medicine degree, all leading to a 医学学士学位. Those outlines are framed around theory semesters and clinical practice and do not mention a thesis requirement. The regulations in this guide are graduate-level. If you are on MBBS and have been told to write something, ask the International Education School which rules govern it, because CMU does not publish an undergraduate thesis standard on these pages.

Deposit, embargo and the spot-check that comes later

The cycle notice requires a fully completed cover page with no blank fields, a spine on the bound volume, and a classification choice from a fixed list: public, or restricted for 6 months, 1 year or 2 years.

Longer protection runs through the confidential and non-disclosure regulation. A 不宜公开 (not suitable for public release) thesis is generally capped at two years, extendable if your department's academic committee approves, and you apply before the pre-defence. A genuinely classified thesis is capped at 10 years at 秘密 level and 10 to 20 years at 机密 level, and the application is made by your supervisor before the proposal stage.

Then there is the part with no Western equivalent. 学位论文抽检 is national and provincial random spot-checking of theses after the degree has been awarded. CMU's handling procedure sets out the consequences: where a flagged thesis involves suspected academic misconduct, the degree is revoked and the certificate cancelled. Supervisors lose recruitment rights for three years on a first problematic thesis, and permanently after two within five years. Departments face enrolment quota cuts, and defence committee members are barred from defences for three years.

Your thesis does not stop being examinable on the day you graduate.

Publication before defence

CMU's degree conferral rules require both master's and doctoral applicants to have published journal articles meeting the degree application requirements before the defence. If you have not met this within the maximum application period, you may still defend and receive your graduation certificate (毕业证), but not the degree (学位). The specific publication standard varies by school, so confirm yours early. If you are preparing a manuscript alongside the thesis, our research paper support works to that timeline.

Pre-submission checklist

• Confirmed which language rule applies to my cohort and degree type
• Chinese abstract written, if my thesis is in English
• Publication requirement met and evidenced
• Original research records complete and ready for initial review
• Names, supervisor and affiliation stripped from the 查重 upload
• Literature review and references included in the uploaded file
• Similarity at or below 20% on the first of my two attempts
• Embargo or 不宜公开 application filed before pre-defence, if needed
• Cover page fully completed, classification chosen, spine printed
• Defence committee meets the composition rules for my degree type
• Supervisor briefed that they attend but cannot be a committee member

Where to ask

Your supervisor and your school's graduate office come first for anything about scope, methodology or publication standards. The graduate school's degree regulations index holds the current text of every rule cited here, and each cycle's own notice carries the dates that bind you. The International Education School is the right place for language, HSK and MBBS questions.

If the drafting rather than the procedure is where you are stuck, our thesis writing support works chapter by chapter, and pricing is published up front.

This guide is independent. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or partnered with China Medical University.