Perhaps make an argument using some data. Do Chinese companies engage in IP theft or corporate espionage at a higher rate than other countries? Is there a cultural point of relevance rather than race? We don’t hear of many stories of ethnic Chinese Singaporeans or Taiwanese doing this sort of thing — when it comes to Chinese, it’s almost exclusively related to mainland, Communist China. Is it racial to point out that there could be some validity to the argument that mainland/communist Chinese engage in this sort of behavior at a higher rate than Indians or pretty much every other Asian country? Do we know that not to be true?
I’m not looking at data, so I don’t know the answer, but dismissing an apparent cultural/political tendency to engage in IP theft or espionage as “racist” is simplistic. HN loves to generalize about Americans and American companies and their practices, yet to do that with China is somehow racist? Regarding Chinese students — how do you think they get permission to study in the US? Chinese people don’t have unlimited freedom of travel. You have to be “approved” before they’ll let you study abroad. That “approval” has a lot to do with the political reliability of that person. So while it is fair to say all Chinese don’t agree with this sort of thing, it is fair to say that the Chinese that end up in US graduate programs represent a set of those who have demonstrated adherence to the CCP mindset.
Race doesn’t have anything to do with the discussion; it’s a cultural-political question and, culturally, mainland communist Chinese have a different viewpoint than international IP law upholds.
You rarely hear of a British person stealing secrets or British companies blatantly stealing sensitive IP. Is that because it happens far less frequently or because it doesn’t get reported?
It seems as if the Chinese way of doing business supports these sorts of situations and it seems that the Chinese cultural attitude towards IP is at odds with the very idea of IP. It’s fair to point that out. Flagging a legitimate story because you don’t like the racial implication is itself racist — you seem to be suggesting that we ought not to discuss this if the perpetrator is of a certain nationality because it might reflect badly on the country and it’s people. Censoring something because you object to the conclusions that might be fairly drawn is to limit the range of intellectual discussion.
Despite the seeming cooperation, China views the US as an adversary. It would be naïve to discount the critique of Chinese practices as simple racism.