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Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

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Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#41

Post by ipnon »

casualracism wrote: post #35
ipnon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But nominally, you can be a political fool in Switzerland without professional consequence.[a] It seems he is being forced to play by the social rules of China in Switzerland. It's fair to say his tweets could jeopardize his ability to return to China and secure a professorship or research position, but to suffer professional consequences in Switzerland, in the heart of Europe, for Chinese political incorrectness is…

As I said in another comment, in the U.S., if you’re an African American studies PhD student and you post a racist cartoon depicting black stereotypes, it’s not hard to imagine losing your doctorate candidacy.

Especially in America's highly controversial political climate today. This story would be much easier to parse if he had merely criticized the CCP, rather than reposting the cartoon. We should remember this incident and see if the pattern will repeat in the future, or if this was a case of inappropriate behavior that was fairly disciplined.

Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#42

Post by thew2434234 »

Yes, China should instead be a soft banana-republic like India and surrender its whole historiography and narrative, and thereby its own self-understanding, to the West.

Then, if someone speaks up for India or the Indian society, they can all be called "Hindutva" and then the West can ban them from the Indology conferences and the academics can all rejoice for having banned the Swastika-worshipping "original" Nazis.

(sarcasm, yes, but everything noted above has happened in Indology. apparently, according to these worthies, Hindus are the original Nazis too - no I'm not kidding. explains the insidious anti-Hindu sentiment in the West.)

Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#43

Post by divbzero »

perihelions wrote: post #39
divbzero wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many other countries would threaten visa denial against the supervisor of a student with 10 Twitter followers? I happen to think the student’s tweets expressed extreme and unfounded views, but they hardly warrant such retaliation from one of the world’s most powerful countries.

The US itself denies visas over the political views of associated people. This is just one example, but a high-profile one: https://www.techspot.com/news/81644-harvard-student-denied-e... ( "Harvard student was denied entry in the US over friends' social media activity" ) discussed here at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20848359 One can only speculate how much worse…

Thank you. I find this only slightly less disturbing than China’s behavior. Stopping a visitor at the border for social posts of acquaintances is almost as bad as writing nasty emails threatening to do so.

(Edit: Ismail was ultimately granted entry [1] but still shameful incident and disturbing that it could happen at all.)

[1]: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/9/3/harvard-student-...

Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#44

Post by Beldin »

pacman2 wrote: post #36
stainforth wrote: post #7

The supervisor is a coward and should be known as one.

Is she? I love China and if somebody pulls a stunt like that that may blow up in my face I would take action too. Think about if you were in CS and a student of your would post some ISIS shit on the internet and you were threatened with a travel ban to the US. I think most people would think twice.

I am in CS. If a student of mine posted "ISIS shit", I'd want nothing to do with that person for personal reasons, irrespective of professional consequences.

Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#45

Post by thaumasiotes »

redis_mlc wrote: post #19
thaumasiotes wrote: post #5

> In the United States too, a quarter of the country’s Confucius Institutes have been shut down in recent years. Universities no longer wanted to give legitimacy to an institution that defended fundamentally different values. Well, that makes a statement about the purpose of a university.

[flagged]

> The fundamentally different value mentioned is Communism.

Right, because American universities are so hostile to communism.

Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#46

Post by ivalm »

pacman2 wrote: post #36
stainforth wrote: post #7

The supervisor is a coward and should be known as one.

Is she? I love China and if somebody pulls a stunt like that that may blow up in my face I would take action too. Think about if you were in CS and a student of your would post some ISIS shit on the internet and you were threatened with a travel ban to the US. I think most people would think twice.

Supporting free Hong Kong and Taiwan isn’t really comparable to supporting ISIS. The “he is an anti Chinese racist” rhetoric seems stretched by the fact that he spent so much time there, his romantic partner is Chinese, he seems to have a friends network there.

Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#47

Post by spacebeer »

ramraj07 wrote: post #15

The professor should be fired and the university punished (doubtful), but the student was also an idiot to do what he did. It’s not like he was some random guy who just tweeted at China, he lived in wuhan for years and has actual family there now, being critical of a totalitarian government in that scenario is the height of monumental stupidity. It’s ironic that the article paints him as methodological and thoughtful…

So the best way to fight totalitarian regimes is to remain silent? That will work for sure, as it always did

Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#48

Post by [deleted] »

casualracism wrote: post #35
ipnon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But nominally, you can be a political fool in Switzerland without professional consequence.[a] It seems he is being forced to play by the social rules of China in Switzerland. It's fair to say his tweets could jeopardize his ability to return to China and secure a professorship or research position, but to suffer professional consequences in Switzerland, in the heart of Europe, for Chinese political incorrectness is…

As I said in another comment, in the U.S., if you’re an African American studies PhD student and you post a racist cartoon depicting black stereotypes, it’s not hard to imagine losing your doctorate candidacy.

[deleted]

Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#49

Post by guerrilla »

divbzero wrote: post #43
perihelions wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US itself denies visas over the political views of associated people. This is just one example, but a high-profile one: https://www.techspot.com/news/81644-harvard-student-denied-e... ( "Harvard student was denied entry in the US over friends' social media activity" ) discussed here at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20848359 One can only speculate how much worse…

Thank you. I find this only slightly less disturbing than China’s behavior. Stopping a visitor at the border for social posts of acquaintances is almost as bad as writing nasty emails threatening to do so. (Edit: Ismail was ultimately granted entry [1] but still shameful incident and disturbing that it could happen at all.) [1]: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/9/3/harvard-student-...

> Stopping a visitor at the border for social posts of acquaintances is almost as bad as writing nasty emails threatening to do so.

Why is it not the same or worse? Now I suffer consequences for the totally legal actions of somone I know?

Re: Swiss Ph.D student’s dismissal spotlights China’s influence

#50

Post by alex_smart »

casualracism wrote: post #17

Not sure what the timeline is here. TFA strongly implies it’s a tweet on March 21 inciting a response on March 28, but buries the lede about the racist cartoon posted at an unknown time that the professor claims to have received an email about. I’m sure political factors play the leading role here, but it’s long past the point where you can casually post racist cartoons and act surprised when you’re hit by undesirabl…

>TFA strongly implies it’s a tweet on March 21 inciting a response on March 28, but buries the lede about the racist cartoon posted at an unknown time that the professor claims to have received an email about.

I continue to be amazed with how creative propaganda can be. It is a simple misdirection (but oh how effect, just read the comments here). There is a paper trail showing what tweet the pushback had been about but the article still takes the liberty to draw up a strawman, and concludes -- Criticising the CCP is supposed to be «Neo-Nazi» like? Hawww.....

One thing I have realized over time is that it is one thing to recognize deficiencies in an argument you are against, and a completely different thing to recognize the same in arguments for a cause that you do believe in.

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