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Comment by curiousgal | Hacker News Reader

Thank you! I am glad to see people are actually reading the articles. Last time this was published no one even bothered to note that there was no intervention from China whatsoever. Following the same logic a hotel worker losing their job because an American tourist complained can say that the United States got them fired..

The comments critical of the CCP in this thread prove that confirmation bias is alive and well. There are many things to critique about China obviously but this particular instance is not one of them.

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Yes, there is no concrete intervention that the CCP did. Still, a supervisor broke off their contact with a promising student based on either the fear of retribution or personal feelings of nationalism. That culture is the product of CCP censorship and many people don't want it in the western world.

Honestly, if I were a professor and my PhD student was overly critical of the US online, I too would distance myself. Visa applications are hard enough as they are.

Not only overly critical, the tweets had racist content and memes as well.

The article mentions a single tweet with a comic depiction that includes possibly exaggerated Asiatic features. Whether this kind of thing qualifies as “racist”… opinions may differ, especially since the article does not provide the original image.

Is there is any evidence that any PhD student has ever found it hard to get a US visa because of criticizing the US or US policy?

There are plenty Chinese students unable to renew their visa to the US for 'national security' reasons.

I wonder why...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_in_t...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_Unite...

Right, but is there is any evidence that any PhD student has ever found it hard to get a US visa because of criticizing the US or US policy?

Border control / consulates check social media profiles, a policy implemented by Trump, I wonder why.

Wouldn't asking for all your social media identities as part of the visa application create somewhat of a chilling effect?

That's the idea, I would guess.

Is this close enough: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=201908301... ?

Happy ending here: he was admitted to the country a week later, on his second attempt, in time to start classes.

(I'm not making excuses for the---dire---state of our immigration policy as a whole. But I was happy to see that this particular case worked out in the end.)

There have been cases of US deportations for even having US critical posts in your feed without making them.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/8/27/incoming-freshm...

https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/02/denied-entry-united-states...

Eh - I knew Arab students who couldn't get their visa renewed for some years after Sep 11. They were involved in antiwar protests, etc. The fact that the US put many of its own anti-war activists on no-fly lists despite not having any evidence they were threats makes this pretty easy to believe.

Some comments might be off the mark, but the article itself is completly honest about the fact that they cannot prove that any chinese officials were even involved in this mess.

The underlying criticism is more that the professor (and if you want to extrapolate swiss institutions as a whole) engaged in some "working towards the fuhrer" behaviour. She took very drastic steps (ruining this students career) on the basis of what would be in the interest of the CCP.

And I would argue that this behaviour is very much incentivized by the CCP. Take a look at how censorhip within the country works: The laws are often quite vague, but enforcement is draconian. This leads people and institutions to guess what the government would want and act (self-censor) accordingly.

One of the original journalists published another article two days later that voices this criticism more clearly: https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/china-und-die-hsg-wo-die-angst-re...

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