Their point stands. The Chinese government is a bad actor with a history of tapping university students for industrial espionage. Their population also dwarfs ours which could justify some concern about American students being "crowded out."

Yes, yes I am. The Chinese government is completely complicit with the information robbery campaign that they have waged for decades. They don't give two fucks about the trials and tribulations necessary to create knowledge as long as they can steal it and make it for cheap.

Am I blaming the average Chinese citizen? No.

But the Chinese government IS composed of millions of people, who are either complicit (in that the information stolen benefits them directly or the local businesses whose growth helps the bureaucrat's rankings) or actively working to steal every byte of information that American researchers worked damn hard to create.

And before anyone comes back with the predictable "but America stole information to grow their economy in the 19th century too!" response, first tell me why abundant land, natural resources, and immigrants weren't as big a factor, unless you seriously think forging steel is as significant as manufacturing high-precision electronics.