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FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

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Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#91

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

coliveira wrote: post #81
DanAndersen wrote: post #32

During my undergrad university days (at the University of Utah), I took some Mandarin classes. There was a local Confucius Institute which provided various free materials in Chinese to the campus library. The extent of my direct contact with them was receiving a couple hundred dollars for doing well in a Mandarin speech contest they held for my class. It was obvious that there was a certain propaganda aspect to this…

All countries have some kind of educational projects like this. The German, for example, have the Goethe Institute that is active around the world. It seems now that the US now wants to criminalize this kind of diplomatic activity just because it is coming from a commercial competitor.

I don't think it's at all fair to compare the Confucius Institute to the Goethe Institut. The Federal Republic of Germany has been free of totalitarianism for over 70 years.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#92

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

mc32 wrote: post #47
Cyberdog wrote: post #25

Australia has of late had its own issues involving accusations of Chinese espionage as well as good old-fashioned palm-greasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Dastyari#Chinese_influence... If the US starts clamping down on this sort of thing, expect China to accuse the US government of xenophobia, since of course "we'd like to stop so many Chinese agents and toadies from infiltrating our governmental and educatio…

Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw the racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all sorts of political interference and other meddling... Alas, they cannot make such accusations. At most they can use "xenophobia".

> Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw the racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all sorts of political interference and other meddling...

I assume this is why everyone turns a blind eye to the elephant in the room when it comes to foreign influence of American affairs - Israel.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#93

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mywittyname wrote: post #67
olyjohn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh... I worked at a community college whose bread and butter was international students. Lots of them had really expensive cars. Not sure why China would send hundreds of operatives to infiltrate a community college and then pay to put them in flashy cars. It's more likely just rich parents.

Even the ones driving 15 year old Chryslers likely have wealthy parents. University is absurdly expensive for international students of no particular note. On the order of $100k/yr in tuition for a no-name state school. What's another $50k when you're spending half a million dollars to educate your kid?

Universities can be expensive, but community colleges typically aren’t. Most of the fuerdai in community colleges are probably studying English to get into a university. Even though they are rich, they won’t turn down a good deal when they can get one (and since luxury cars are so much cheaper in the USA than China, they are considered good deals as well).

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#94

Post by Clubber »

noetic_techy wrote: post #88

And we continue to tolerate those who wouldn't tolerate us... Even the Chinese have a word for these people who naively defend and turn a blind eye to this sort of thing: "Baizou". From Wikipedia: "The word baizuo is, according to political scientist Zhang Chenchen, a Chinese word that ridicules Western "liberal elites". He further defined the word "baizuo" with the definition "People who only care about topics such…

That sounds a lot like it would come straight from right wing propaganda from the wording.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#95

Post by seanmcdirmid »

THE_PUN_STOPS wrote: post #71
zengid wrote: post #50

That would explain why my school's international students have such nice, James Bond-esk, cars.

Those cars are more expensive to purchase in China/Saudi Arabia/Qatar/etc then they are to purchase in the USA/Canada/etc and import later. Additionally, exotic cars tend to hold value well and are easy to sell for liquid assets. Thus, for wealthy international families sending a student to North America, this is a two-birds-one-stone situation. The child gets a nice way to get around and the parents get a discount o…

They can’t actually import them into china, it is ridiculously expensive to get a car last customs. My old boss tried to get his Hummer imported into china from the USA and could never even get it approved.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#96

Post by Clubber »

If the federal government is so concerned about giving away R&D, they need to do something about all the companies that freely give it away when they offshore manufacturing to China and other countries. They've been doing it for decades; the horse is already out of the barn. Not only that, he left the barn 30 years ago, and has recently died of old age.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#97

Post by walshemj »

BeetleB wrote: post #87
rdtsc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if these were Russians and the title was "FBI Says Russian Operatives..." would you have said it's straight up racist fear-mongering? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...

(Edit: My comment is about the fear-mongering part, not the racist part). >What if these were Russians and the title was "FBI Says Russian Operatives..." would you have said it's straight up racist fear-mongering? Yes, I would call it fear mongering. What exactly have these operatives done? What can these operatives do? International students are required to be registered full time, or they'll be in violation of thei…

You know spies generally don't fill in tax returns - though one Russian illegal in the UK ran a very successful one armed bandit / pinball company as part of his cover.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#98

Post by mc32 »

HumanDrivenDev wrote: post #92
mc32 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw the racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all sorts of political interference and other meddling... Alas, they cannot make such accusations. At most they can use "xenophobia".

> Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw the racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all sorts of political interference and other meddling... I assume this is why everyone turns a blind eye to the elephant in the room when it comes to foreign influence of American affairs - Israel.

That one's a bit more complicated. Our interests intersect with theirs along many axes. And they have lots of lobbyists in DC and Americans of Israeli/Jewish heritage donate lots to DC politicians along Israeli policy lines. People of Russian heritage on the other hand typically have opposing views to that of Moscow in many areas, so they are not as aligned, if at all; in addition, many people of Russians descent have Jewish heritage as well... So you know, they doubly oppose Moscow.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#99

Post by thephyber »

noetic_techy wrote: post #88

And we continue to tolerate those who wouldn't tolerate us... Even the Chinese have a word for these people who naively defend and turn a blind eye to this sort of thing: "Baizou". From Wikipedia: "The word baizuo is, according to political scientist Zhang Chenchen, a Chinese word that ridicules Western "liberal elites". He further defined the word "baizuo" with the definition "People who only care about topics such…

> And we continue to tolerate those who wouldn't tolerate us...

It's interesting that as an American, I can't tell if you are talking about the Chinese or the "liberal elite Americans" when you state this. That's a common talking point of the American right wing and could equally describe the position of any person who uses that Chinese term in seriousness.

Also, the hypocrisy of a Chinese word criticizing westerners for enforcing political correctness is humorous.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#100

Post by seanmcdirmid »

DanAndersen wrote: post #32

During my undergrad university days (at the University of Utah), I took some Mandarin classes. There was a local Confucius Institute which provided various free materials in Chinese to the campus library. The extent of my direct contact with them was receiving a couple hundred dollars for doing well in a Mandarin speech contest they held for my class. It was obvious that there was a certain propaganda aspect to this…

Most of the UofU Chinese teachers are Taiwanese, and they aren’t funded though the Confucius institute (rather, there is a deep connection between the LDS church and Taiwan, which allows missionaries). I had one chinese teacher at Utah who was really against the Mainland government (and mainlanders in general), I don’t think his contract was renewed but he was a really funny guy and a decent teacher (had a blonde wife, seven boys, only in Utah).
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