Former Harvard chemistry chair to stand trial for allegedly hiding ties to China
wgbh.org
wgbh.org
But I am wondering why you are framing it like its no bid deal. How much does China share with the US?
There is a history of IP theft, and its not for the betterment of mankind it's self interest. You could point fingers but then the whole world goes blind.
Nationalism is blindness, better to be patriotic but not blind.
They manufacture all the American goods for cheap, to benefit themselves but to say there is no partnership is not honest.
>How much does China share with the US?
They use manpower, for IP they ignore the IP laws usually, so if you mean sciences, there are frequent collaborations.
>There is a history of IP theft
The US did not enforce IP laws until they had a sizable amount to use as leverage, I see China doing the same.
>and its not for the betterment of mankind it's self interest.
Self interest does not have to be a zero sum game. Oil baron enriched themselves and also provided cheap oil.
Outsourcing labor to China has diminished the US so much. It is like the Heroin of economics for Americans.
Whose fault is that? China's for taking the deal?
Have you also spent most of last year accusing George Floyd protesters of downplaying the importance of paying for cigarettes?
Yes. The betterment of the human race is an unintended consequence. Real but.
> The NIH and the FBI are targeting ethnic Chinese scientists, including U.S. citizens, searching for a cancer cure. Here’s the first account of what happened to Xifeng Wu.
> Her resignation, and the departures in recent months of three other top Chinese American scientists from Houston-based MD Anderson, stem from a Trump administration drive to counter Chinese influence at U.S. research institutions. The aim is to stanch China’s well-documented and costly theft of U.S. innovation and know-how. The collateral effect, however, is to stymie basic science, the foundational research that underlies new medical treatments. Everything is commodified in the economic cold war with China, including the struggle to find a cure for cancer.
> Ways of working that have long been encouraged by the NIH and many research institutions, particularly MD Anderson, are now quasi-criminalized, with FBI agents reading private emails, stopping Chinese scientists at airports, and visiting people’s homes to ask about their loyalty.
Like in above case where the person is being entangled into an IRS tax evasion case, these people are being ethnically targeted, questions, harassed, their constitutional rights being trampled upon.
It's not also anywhere near as clear cut in self interest as you say. Even within China, Chinese companies aren't given that much IP protection.
In the end 1.4 billion people are better off for it. I struggle to see how mankind isn't better off for it.
Also, China is pretty different in that the PLA allows their researchers to publish a lot of research that gives away their capabilities in sensitive domains like EW and submarine warfare. I'm not sure they would react massively to something that doesn't even entail any information leaking.
Can you tell me more or what to look for? I just remember an Israel stole some classified stuff and was sent to prison, an ally stealing secrets but I thought it was a rare occurrence.
What is the US response? I don't even know.
>increasing threats of sanctions
So threats, no real sanctions, not that the steel sanctions did anything, somehow Vietnam started selling us all their steel after we sanction China for other reasons.
What happened? Nobody will be discouraged by such a short term sentence, and be emboldened by its opportunity cost.
Was it really stealing?
The British pretty much did nothing to stop it nor protected their IP. They certainly didn't strongly enforce it.
Contrast that with Chinese theft; as soon as counterfeit products or patent infringing ones make it to US soil they are promptly seized and destroyed if found to be infringing the laws.
I think publishers in the young United States, having no copyright laws on sheet music, blatantly copied sheet music from British publishers. However, I'm not able to find a source on that.
Did he? There's no evidence for that.
To me, it sounds like a smart Harvard grad just figured out a few missing pieces required to get textile manufacturing going. Wasn't his first time doing industrial processes at scale either: he successfully ran a distillery before that.
It's also interesting to remember that it happened at a time England was in open war against the United States. It's not really the same right now with Chinese companies trying to get into the US market and vice versa. Both countries claim to be allied but there's a clear disregard for the laws of one particular country!
Maybe a better analogy to what Francis Lowell did would be operation paperclip. The US did steal technology from Germany at the end of the war [0].
You forgot that last part. China's trade dealings are outright hostile. China's overlooking slave-wages, and suicides tied to working conditions or lack thereof.
China must be considered /by all/ to be an enemy of the rest of the globe.
This is not saying that the Chinese populace are enemies, but the Chinese Government, which controls the populace, is most definitely so.
This is a mostly western view since westerners engaged in a zero sum conflict with the oldest super power on the planet to gain temporary economic advantages for the last 100 years or so... most of the world doesn't agree with that view of China even with the $ billions ($trillions?) of anti-Chinese propaganda spending by the west.
America as the world police/bully and China leverages itself by being slightly better. The US should offer a better deal than China can, its better than bombing the shit out of people, scaring them with weapons, and having them hate us for killing their countrymen or family.
And don't even think about saying it is not forcing them, because I have lived in two such countries in Central America where Taiwan was a hefty money donor.
From a realpolitik standpoint, you can choose a small island that makes mostly advanced microchips or a large country that makes everything. Are you going to say they didn't make a rational choice in allies?
“If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.”
― Catherine Aird
If there is legitimately a China espionage angle, then it absolutely should be in the mix. Why should that be left out or not relevant?
"He broke tax law not declaring income." "Oh well where did that income come from?" "He is Chinese spy, but that's not relevant or important" "Oh... ok. So then, didn't he also break some other laws by spying for China?" "Yeah maybe, but we don't want to explore that."
(but for the record, I am not saying that this is propaganda)
NASA public outreach is technically propaganda.
We may have 100 numbered facts. If I tell you all 100 facts, you probably arrive at something close to the truth.
If I tell you 5 facts, then {2,45,67,89,90} will give you one perceived truth and {68,69,70,71,72} another. Most of the time, you're only told 5 facts.
I am far more suspect of your using the term mccarthyism when not related whatsoever.
Mccarthyism is making up BS on people about their supposed communist leanings and raking them over the coals in public sham hearings / blacklisting them from working (ie hollywood).
What makes it worse for the professor is that he took those funds from a country with which his own government has a very fraught relationship and whom is actively trying to espionage technology. Theres more to break on this i would wager but don't call it mccarthyism.
But why is this a threat in the first place? Its never explained and assumed to be bad because "China"? This is completely absurd. I can understand the hiding the income angle for tax purposes, but sharing scientific information is not a threat. This is absurd
So the issue is not the country (China) or the fact that he joined a foreign program. The issue is the nondisclosure.
From my first quoted example, the tone implies that the issue is China itself which is where I got that impression.
Well, there's an issue there too. The Thousand Talents program has a pattern of paying people to break US laws.
While we are in denial, it is clear even to naive Chinese that they are at war with the US when it comes to technology. The only upper hand that the US has over China is the decades of research expertise in core areas.
It looks like the professor was targeted to transfer this expertise to the Chinese. No different from flying a chief scientist from your competing company to help setup a lab like the original, IP at risk or not is irrelevant.
I feel like as someone on HN you should know the adage well ... don't believe the hype. I will add, think for yourself in the mix.
Not that we are going to war anytime soon, but we are definitely in a war on economic and technology dominance.
And the ability to draw and assimilate global talent.
1. Military build up since WWII, including global logistics and bases. For example, the F-15 is 104-0, and no one has come even close to the F-22 (arguably not even the US with the F-35)
2. The best infrastructure (and supporting services) in the world
3. Reserve currency (for now).
It's important not to forget these while on the China hype train.
One of the bigger downsides that the US has is that we are used to a higher standard of living compared to other countries. This was possible by the aftermath of WWII, where everyone else was destroyed. Not so much now, as global infrastructure/development is catching up and we are starting to revert to mean, which means down.
Our technology is accelerating exponentially, I wouldn't be surprised if manned fighters become obsolete in a decade.
Germany produced some of the most sophisticated weapons in a short span during their time because they were focused. While we are busy optimizing clicks and politicizing gender pronouns, China has shutdown all kinds of virtual industry.
I'll tell you, from a non-US perspective (Im French) it's extremely important we have a balance so that even if the US becomes irrational and untrustworthy (think an even worse Trump) we dont all start starving and disconnecting the internet lol
I chose to emigrate to China instead of the US exactly for that reason and China chose to open its door much more easily to me also because they understand they have to compete.
China has political flaws we cant deny, but the US, dude, dont get me started on its potential, or even its current ability, to do great damage. And so far the negative american impact on France is much larger than the Chinese one, so it's not always obvious to me we should blindly follow the US in their little showdown.
Like this…
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3159492/underst...
What? Should the stun their growth so that they can show their obedience?
This does not make any sense.
> While we are in denial, it is clear even to naive Chinese that they are at war with the US when it comes to technology. The only upper hand that the US has over China is the decades of research expertise in core areas.
It's quite obvious why they want to have tech on their own, since that's basically what makes a nation first world. That doesn't mean that there's any war going on. Do you think you're at war with the EU, too, due to the Euro and their economic growth?
It could be benign I guess but it definitely could also be a state sponsored or run operation to steal tech. It's not like China doesn't and hasn't pilfered outside businesses for their own interests.
Somehow when it comes to China, people grab for any excuse to criticize them and "stealing tech" is one of them. Certainly it is possible to come about knowledge by nefarious means, but that doesn't mean that it isn't legitimate for China to try to learn things from other people.
As for some professor getting paid, tech profs can be a pretty hot commodity, so it's not in itself surprising that a prof is making big bucks teaching people about his subject and perhaps also introducing his network.
But that's not what is going on here. In the current framework we live in, there is IP and there is knowledge and that knowledge is funded and worked on under certain rules. If you break those rules there are consequences.
It's not a free world when the US and Europe are trying to impose their laws on you, and if you refuse to follow their laws then their citizens are prohibited from dealing with yours.
They literally agreed to an IP framework.
That observation is entirely consistent with the US wanting to be exceedingly careful about IP exfiltrating to China.
Protect themselves from the US military how? When they start imperial subjugation campaigns...or?
China's malicious aspirations are the only thing the US is concerned with.
It's clear enough to note that China has short-term aspirations of invading a sovereign state, and leave it at that.
There is no comparison of morality between the US and China. For all its faults and failures the US is unequivocally a more moral and just nation.
Let's not just leave it at that. I won't let you deceptively downplay the egregious evil China is and has been responsible for. It's directly responsible for multiple events that when measured over the course of history, are the most insane human atrocities ever committed.
However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries, and brutalized countless nations - Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Irak, Cuba, Palestine, Cambodia and many others.
They are both immoral, but i d different ways at different times, like all empires have been and forever will be, from the Romans to the Arabs to the Mongols to the French, Dutch, Belgians etc.
> However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries
That's just inaccurate. The founding of the current communist regime resulted in more deaths within China's borders than all of the US's military campaigns (and espionage) since WW2 combined. I've seen it said a lot that the "US kills more!" So I wonder if that's just a talking point the CCP is trying to disseminate to distract from their current genocide.
But, if I am a citizen of, say, Lebanon, I have many more reasons to fear the USA than I have to fear China. I'm much more likely to be killed by the US government than the Chinese government.
You are very clearly uninformed about history. Especially if that's your list of brutalized countries with zero insight into the many factors stimulating US intervention in most of them and the aftermath resulting from failed or cessation of intervention, especially in those supported by the CCP.
Vietnam, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia Aftermath
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_at_Hu%E1%BA%BF
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People%27s_Army_...
https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP6.HTM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochina_refugee_crisis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide
https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/post-war-vietnam/#Purges...
El Salvador and Cuba I will grant that the clandestine support of a coup and refusal to condemn an oppressive, violent junta that came to power was inexcusable on the part of the US, but its involvement still has nothing compared to the CCP and USSR involvement in mass genocides and democides across the globe. The guerillas weren't benevolent liberators either.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-18-mn-12349-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-recor...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121496498705421951
Nicaragua Another good example of the faults and failures of the US historically, but incomparable to the CCP, and aligned with global economics at the time. A victim of the intense geopolitical tensions and climate in the late 19th and early 20th century thanks in large part to the fallout from the Spanish-American War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars
Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq. The collapse of the Ottomon Empire was the motivating factor in harsh and enduring political tensions in Central Asia. Not US intervention. US involvement in Afghanistan all started with solicited intervention by the populace for help against imperial actions by the USSR. Continued intervention was not purely political or economic in nature, and certainly not genocidal or democidal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1992%E2%80%9...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1996%E2%80%9...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Afghanistan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes#Afghanistan_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Emirate_of_Afghanistan...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hazara_people#A...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalq
Iran Another failure, yet still incomparable to the history of the CCP. The rise of an Islamic theocracy in the geopolitical landscape of Iran should not be surprising, regardless of US intervention. It coincides with other theocratic revolutions in the region that were not the consequence of intervention by the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Zia-ul-Haq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_republic
Hopefully with this history lesson you develop an understanding that even with the many wrongs the US has committed over time, none come close to the CCP in its relatively short existence. The US has killed orders of magnitude less people domestically and internationally, justified and unjustified, across its entire history than the CCP has unjustifiably across the globe in the last 75 years.
> The massacre at Huế came under increasing press scrutiny later, when press reports alleged that South Vietnamese "revenge squads" had also been at work in the aftermath of the battle, searching out and executing citizens that had supported the communist occupation.[10][11]
This feels like the classic 'barrage of bullshit' strategy, where a load of dubious claims are thrown out in the knowledge that it's near impossible to refute them all, and refuting part of them will come across as "well, this one might be contested, but look at all the others!".
Wikipedia editors at work
Taking just Cambodia - the Khmer Rouge regime was of course supported by China with massive resources. However, the US has also killed tens of thousands of Cmabodians directly in bombing campaigns during the Vietnam War, between 30,000 and 150,000 (likely committing the war crime of Aggression, as they were not in a state of war with Cambodia); this helped galvanize the population towards joining the enemies of the US, helping the Khmer Rouge attain power.
Later on, in 1979 when the re-united Vietnam attacked the Khmer Rouge, both the US and China condemned the actions of the Vietnam liberators, and helped defend the Khmer Rouge from international opinion (since Vietnam was being supported in this by the USSR). The US sent lawyers to defend Pol Pot himself from the tribunals in the newly liberated Cambodia, and both China and the US helped keep Khmer Rouge affiliates on the UN seat for Cambodia until 1993. Of course, China went further and launched a retaliatory war against Vietnam for their liberation of Cambodia.
You also seem to be greatly minimizing the US involvement in many of these places. The US occupied Nicaragua for 20 years, installed a military dictatorship that ruled it for 50 years, and then trained, armed and directed guerillas that killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of civilians to try to stop the revolution that took down the Somoza dictatorship. Much of the rest of South America saw similar treatment from the US: coups taking down socialist popular movements and installing military dictatorships instead, then supporting violent militias if counter-revolutions started.
In the middle east, while many of the problems started with the British handling of the collapse of the Ottoman empire, and the USSR also led brutal wars of oppression, the US has picked up the torch in the last 30 or so years as the major source of strife in the region. They are responsible for:
- arming and training the Taliban
- installing Saddam Hussein in power, arming him, and directing him to attack Iran, even accepting his use of chemical warfare
- squashing Iran's brief democracy under Mossadegh, installing a military dictatorship under the Shah, starting the Iran Nuclear Weapons program, arming them (and then losing control to the islamic revolution)
- funding and arming Saudi Arabia and allowing it to spread its demented form of islamic fundamentalism, supporting even as we speak their invasion of Yemen
- supporting the Israeli apartheid state, illegal nuclear weapons arsenal, and illegal occupation of Palestinian territories
- invading Afghanistan in 2001 and killing thousands in the process, causing the deaths of as many as 100,000 civilians overall in the conflict
>Israeli apartheid state
Apartheid states do not let the oppressed class have massive representation in their representative government at all levels.
They do not have members of the oppressed class sit on the bench of the highest court in the land.
They do not mandate, at a federal level, that ALL state enterprise MUST have a member of the oppressed class on their board of directors.
They do not consistently have individuals from the oppressed class as cabinet members.
They do not have ambassadors belonging to the oppressed class.
They do not have members of the oppressed class as some of the highest ranking generals in their military, or as commanders of, hilariously, the border police.
Members of the oppressed class in apartheid states do not have the highest standard of living and quality of life compared to members of the same religious and ethnic groups in the region.
Apartheid states do not bend over backwards to accommodate, preserve, and enable the cultural and religious practices of the oppressed class, even when its members openly call for the genocide of the predominant ethnic group in the locale, refuse to participate in coalition governments, and reinforce sectarian, segregationist cultural policies and beliefs.
If you sincerely think Israel is an apartheid state, you are woefully uninformed, and a fool that has fallen for blatant propaganda.
Israel is very obviously leading a campaign to eradicate the Palestinian population and take their land without taking the people.
They are violating all two-state solution guarantees through their obviously illegal settlements. And they do not want to simply occupy the Palestinian territories and go for a single-state solution, because that would leave Palestinian Arabs a majority (or at least extremely large minority) of the population, which contradicts the dream of an Isareli state controlled by God's chosen people.
All of your examples of how the minority Arab citizenry of Israel is treated well are entriely irrelevant, and if you know anything about the history of calling Israel an apartheid state, by people like Noam Chomsky, you would definitely know this, so I can only assume you are arguing in bad faith.
Palestine has rejected every two state solution proposed for the last half century. You're regurgitating ignorant nonsense. The ruling parties and majority population of Palestine are VOCALLY genocidal when it comes to the Jews, but you'd rather ignore that and accuse Israel of subversively carrying out a genocide against people it has in its highest levels of government. Then you have the audacity to accuse ME of bad faith. How many Jews are in Palestinian leadership positions?
I couldn't care less what Noam Chomsky says or thinks on this subject, he's one of the worst ultracrepidarian clowns in contemporary history.
How exactly do you square this circle?
> Palestine has rejected every two state solution proposed for the last half century.
This is twisting history. UN resolutions for a two-state solution have always been approved by Palestine, with the USA being the veto against them. The idea of recognizing the state of Israel has been accepted by Palestinian leadership since the 1970s. But, the specific proposals that have usually been on the table have been almost universally laughable: taking away even more of Palestinian territory, limited access to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, limited access between the two halves of the Palestinian state and many other issues.
Not to mention, almost all of these negotiations were "arbitrated" by Israel's single biggest ally in the world, the USA. This would be as if you'd expect peace talks between Ukraine and the Donetsk separatists arbitrated by Russia to go well.
> They are free to become Israeli citizens at any time and those are the positions they end up in when they do.
And looking a little bit into this, it's amazing you can claim this, as the truth is precisely the opposite. 90% of the Arabic population of Palestine before the war did not qualify to become Israeli citizens. Now, not only do they not have any special right to become Israeli citizens, they don't even have the right to enter the country, even if they have a spouse or property there, unless they meet some other conditions.
By contrast, any person of Jewish decent or that converts to Judaism has the right to become a citizen of Israel with minimal other conditions. They will also likely receive property from the JNF if they wish to settle in Israel.
The PA and Hamas have repeatedly rejected two state solutions, refuse to recognize Israel, and openly call for genocide.
You failed to answer my question too. This discussion over
This isn't a whataboutism equivalency. It is a statement that one needs to first be honest about ones own shortcomings before disparaging another.
> absolutist surveillance state
I'm pretty sure that neither Google nor the rest of the world is thrilled about NSA warrantless mass surveillance programs.
> is currently participating in genocide, has institutionally striven to sustain an ethnostate
State supported ethnic cleansing of Native Americans in the 19th century. State supported subjugation and murder of African Americans in... well, improving, but still counting.
> exercises extrajudicial imprisonment and execution...
Extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, and torture in third party countries and at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
> ... against vast swaths of the population to preserve political power
20th century voting rights struggles, in which African Americans were systemically disenfranchised with the goal of preserving white political and economic power.
---
I'm a proud American, support the use of the US military on the global stage as a force for increasing moral good in the world, and consider the Chinese model of authoritarianism incompatible with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness owed to every human. I believe the US holds individual freedom and equality before the law as much higher ideals, and delivers on them more often and fully, than China does.
But there's a reason Martin Luther King Jr. talks about "self purification" as one of the three prerequisite steps before direct action, and it's because easy hatred corrupts true justice.
Enumerating the ways in which your opponent looks like you, and the ways in which you've fallen short of your own ideals, isn't an argument for inaction, but a clarification and sharpening of action. 1960s racial injustice in the United States provided an embarrassing talking point while the US lectured the USSR on individual freedom. Using the evil that another does as justification for righteousness requires first accepting the evil that one has done.
I guess that's why they called it the Civil War?
They wouldn’t need protection but for reneging on Hong Kong, threats to Taiwan, taking over Tibet, or their Ughyur re-education camps?
I don’t support the Chinese government due to their active genocide along with the horrific subjugation of the population, but it’s a judgement on a case by case basis.
The US contributed as much new, prominent technology to the industrial revolution as any other nation. A quick trip down the list of prominent US inventions of the era nicely demonstrates that. There's no foundation to claim that the US stole more technology than Britain did going the other direction. It's a Reddit-knowledge bumper sticker claim that is almost exclusively utilized in threads like this one, and is never substantially supported in discussion (because it's exceptionally difficult to prove that US technology theft was meaningfully out of line with what eg major European economic powers were doing during the industrial revolution).
This is a standard case of one rising power coming up agains the incumbent. They'll do what they have to do to catch up, just as you did what you had to do ~150 years ago. Saying that, I hope China isn't ultimately successful due to their total disregard for human rights, but getting all bent out of shape over this trade secrets stuff is silly.
Software patents generally suck and most IP laws grant monopoly for too long.
But also, some IP law is needed. I'd be willing to bet 90+% of HN would sign on to that.
> Somehow when it comes to China, people grab for any excuse to criticize them and "stealing tech" is one of them
I'd rather they not be relaxed for the express purpose of sharing technology and methods with an authoritarian government that promotes itself as the US's rival. Again, I'd be willing to bet most of HN would cosign that.
I'm always really frustrated by comments that are like "HN/group always says X but now they're saying Y! So inconsistent!" Like it's somehow mandatory to completely disregard context and degree when forming opinions. It's not. You can say no to sex with someone without committing to celibacy.
I'd be perfectly comfortable showing up on capital Hill and yelling that Biden shits his pants, but I would not be comfortable showing up in Beijing calling Xi Winnie the Pooh. It's ok if that informs my level of comfort supporting the technological progression of the respective institutions.
> As for some professor getting paid, tech profs can be a pretty hot commodity, so it's not in itself surprising that a prof is making big bucks teaching people about his subject and perhaps also introducing his network.
Tons of professors make good money. Great money. That has nothing to do with why this guy is in the news.
China is a threat to this to the extent they can build up a second independent system that rivals it.
It’s unclear to me whether there would have been any issues or failure to obtain funding if Lieber had identified himself as associated with Wuhan University of Technology and with the Thousand Talents as the indictment claims he should have.
Of course the case has opened the doors for the ubiquitous “China bad” vs “China good” culture war
If there’s nothing fishy going on, then why lie about it when asked?
Interesting philosophy from someone with their open source projects on their profile...
The idea that this is to "increase the power of the CCP" is only true in sense that economic growth may increase the ruling party's popularity. In classic dictatorship thinking sending your best students abroad and accepting foreign educators is the last thing you would want to do.
That's why you consistently see Chinese born, US citizens with decades of time in the states prosecuted for espionage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_in_t...
I agree. It doesn't contradict what I said, though. Both are true.
> only true in sense that economic growth may increase the ruling party's popularity
No. It also gives them better weapons, AI, surveillance technology, etc. It literally increases their power, both abroad and within their borders.
CCP's popularity is guaranteed because it is criminal in China to tell negative truths about them. Their popularity is irrelevant because they have control over the entire country's military and surveillance networks. If they can intern and slaughter millions of Uyghurs, it's almost impossible for a rebellion to overthrow them.
They don't need this program for popularity.
Not trying to use a "what-about-it" argument; I'm worried about China, but in terms of imperialism I'm much more worried about the USA, so I'm not sure if I prefer China stealing IP or the USA keeping that IP.
(An an aside, and mostly because I'm curious: are you from the USA? I feel like many people in the USA don't realize that in most countries the USA foreign policy isn't seen as something more virtuous than China...on the contrary, it's usually seen as worse. The USA's internal policy (human rights, democracy) is seen as better though)
> in terms of imperialism I'm much more worried about the USA
The US hasn't added/conquered territory since 1947, and it hasn't acquired a large, populated territory since 1898[1]. Whatever you want to call US foreign policy (certainly disastrous in the 20th century and early 21st), it's not imperial in the traditional sense of conquest and annexation.
> How many countries has China invaded in the last 20-30-40 years? How many has the USA?
The US hasn't unilaterally invaded any country since Panama in 1989[2]. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are horrific human rights disasters and unforgivable crimes, but they were not what I would call imperial. You may disagree.
China is in the process of taking over Hong Kong, and they already occupy Tibet, parts of Nepal, and parts of India[3]. They have shown aggression on many disputed borders in the last few years, and they have increased their naval presence in many parts of the world.
We should expect to see Taiwan annexed in the future, per Xi himself, although it's hard to know when or how they'll do it[4].
> in most countries the USA foreign policy isn't seen as something more virtuous than China...on the contrary, it's usually seen as worse. The USA's internal policy (human rights, democracy) is seen as better though
I am from the US and I do realize this. US foreign policy is certainly worse and more deadly than China's, but (as I've said in other comments) the US is not actively taking over new territory.
The two main differences are:
- US foreign policy trajectory is toward fewer wars, partly because we are a democracy and citizens are extremely against starting new wars now; Chinese policy is in the direction of aggression
- the US is not a dictatorship capable of ethnic genocide (at least in the modern era)
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_territorial_acqu...
2. https://www.thoughtco.com/american-involvement-wars-colonial...
3. https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/not-just-india-tibet-...
4. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/11/china-taiwan-inv...
You’re literally repeating the “China bad” argument
I’m not going to argue that the CCP is benign. But either the thousand talents program is specifically harmful in some way, or you’re against it because “China bad”. And you appear to be arguing the latter.
My opinion of thousand talents is it’s an attempt to reverse brain drain. I personally know a Chinese immigrant with a green card who was struggling to find funding for some kind of cancer research here in the states, then found funding working as a regional thousand talents back in China and now runs some lab or startup or something in Anhui.
Of course, hiding funding and income is another matter altogether.
The CCP is not China. China is not the CCP. China is not bad and Chinese people are not bad.
The CCP is, unequivocally, one of the most evil and dangerous organizations in the history of humankind. With enough technology, it will be literally impossible to organize a rebellion against them and return China to something like democracy. It will be like `1984` (and is not far off from that type of dystopia even today).
With enough military power, they can annex more and more countries, and no one will be able to stop them. Hong Kong and Taiwan are templates for the future.
> But either the thousand talents program is specifically harmful in some way, or you’re against it because “China bad”. And you appear to be arguing the latter.
I was very clear why I was against it. It's explicitly a program to exfiltrate scientific knowledge (which translates into military, surveillance, and economic power) from non-authoritarian countries to an authoritarian one.
The US has its share of horrific history, and I wish it weren't so powerful and dangerous, but I am always opposed to power flowing from a democratic country to an authoritarian one.
> My opinion of thousand talents is it’s an attempt to reverse brain drain. I personally know a Chinese immigrant with a green card who was struggling to find funding for some kind of cancer research here in the states, then found funding working as a regional thousand talents back in China and now runs some lab or startup or something in Anhui.
I'm not going to argue that nothing good comes of this program. The problem with regimes like the CCP is that they abuse well-intentioned people, and they use a façade of "for the people" to do things that are purely for themselves.
The "they can annex more and more countries" is pure speculation (besides the obvious case of Taiwan). Do you think they'll annex Thailand? Vietnam? Russia? Japan?
>The US has its share of horrific history, and I wish it weren't so powerful and dangerous, but I am always opposed to power flowing from a democratic country to an authoritarian one.
I agree that the CCP is dangerous, but the foreign invasion is a really poor argument, both because there's no evidence that China will invade other countries (again, besides the obvious Taiwan case) and because the USA has invaded multiple countries in the past 50 years...with horrific consequences to the population
Reasons A, B, and C can (and should) acknowledge the beneficiary of the thing that is being done.
If the beneficiary is power-hungry and genocidal, that is a valid reason for "thing" to be a bad idea.
Similarly, it's better for, let's say, Norway to become a nuclear power than for North Korea to become a nuclear power.
The accumulation of military power by a non-aggressive democracy is less dangerous than by an authoritarian regime that has shown recent interest in conquest.