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

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101–110 of 374 posts

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

#101
post #88

Well, buried in the middle of this article is an important point: > In fact, as of the fall 2019 semester, Gerber had been officially enrolled only at the university in China, not at St. Gallen. So he was a Swiss person doing a PhD at a Chinese university. His relationship with the professor at the Swiss university was an unofficial one, so the word 'dismissal' here is pretty misleading. No information about what hap…

But unofficial relationships matter in science. For example, I am currently doing an unpaid internship in the hopes of getting a paper out of it. If the professor cancelled it, I might be left with nothing to show for months of hard work, similar to the guy in the story. That kind of thing is not uncommon at all at the PhD level.

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

#102
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lest ye incur the wrath of dang, HN newbies, accusing others of astroturfing or hidden agendas is against the guidelines. For people who are having trouble parsing that: I am not an HN noob and I did not accuse anyone of astroturfing. The opposite, on both counts.

I'm afraid I may have dragged you down with me. Johnny thought he saw CCP behind the tree, so the surrounding transnational region needs to be firebombed as a precautionary measure. One has to go along with it, or one is immediately court marshaled as a secret CCP sympathizer. Anyway, now that we're at the bottom of the comment thread and just talking to each other, thanks for vouching for me. You probably saved me f…

You're welcome.

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

#103

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…

I think calling for the professors dismissal in this instance is completely unwarranted. Not only do we have only one side of the story here, we don't even know what those tweets were, or if there's anything else at play here, nor is the relationship very clear here (the supposed student was actually studying in china for 3 years? What exactly was the relationship with the Swiss professor then?) Additionally, it's just not acceptable to demand others suffer the consequences for fights you picked, no matter the justification.

I mean, there is clearly an argument that the funding, influence and prestige the Confucius institute grants also allows them influence, and that that influence is perhaps unwanted. But if that's the conclusion, we should demand a counter-pressure by parties that are better able to withstand chinese pressure, e.g. perhaps some coalition of European countries that reject the institute whole cloth. Unfortunately, I doubt the EU can do much here because it's already been infiltrated by governments that clearly appear to be under Chinese influence, such as Hungary, and it needs unanimity for most action; and of course Switzerland isn't even in the EU.

To put it another way: I have doubts a country like Switzerland would dare to pick this fight with China alone - but if so, how absurdly unreasonable is it to expect an individual professor to, without any kind of policy. The whole issue puts the wisdom of Switzerland's idea of independence at risk.

Also, I no matter how you reject China's actions, I think it's morally pretty questionable to put your partner's family at risk, even if you think you're in the right, even if you are.

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

#104

Well, buried in the middle of this article is an important point: > In fact, as of the fall 2019 semester, Gerber had been officially enrolled only at the university in China, not at St. Gallen. So he was a Swiss person doing a PhD at a Chinese university. His relationship with the professor at the Swiss university was an unofficial one, so the word 'dismissal' here is pretty misleading. No information about what hap…

The swiss university had advised the student to be enrolled only China in order to make it easier for him to complete his PhD at the swiss university afterwards. The swiss university is now evading their moral responsibility by hiding behind the convenient legal situation.

The professor explicitly cut ties with the student because she was afraid to lose her ability to get a visa for China. It's unclear how she came to this conclusion, but I don't see how she can conclude this just from a message she got from a student in Canada. Chinese authorities must have made it clear at some point that they are ready to punish either this or any slightest misstep like this. And it's really an insignificant incident: someone who is not officially her student, has basically no followers because he just created his account, tweets a little and deletes everything as soon as the professor finds a problem with it.

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

#105

Well, buried in the middle of this article is an important point: > In fact, as of the fall 2019 semester, Gerber had been officially enrolled only at the university in China, not at St. Gallen. So he was a Swiss person doing a PhD at a Chinese university. His relationship with the professor at the Swiss university was an unofficial one, so the word 'dismissal' here is pretty misleading. No information about what hap…

There's information on his Swiss PhD program in the article. The Swiss University advised him to de-register so he could maintain years of eligibility or whatever, and the Swiss advisor continued to supervise him obviously. The University had told him that re-registering upon his return would be "no problem" with the support of the advisor. So he kind of got caught in a transitional stage where he has no options if a…

It does not pass the smell test. This is not an error one would make. Imagine one gets an email from Z, X-Y , then why would one describe this as "emails (ed: plural!) from China"?

My theory that fits the evidence given is that the professor is withholding the real "angry emails from China" because she thinks if those are published, then she definitely won't get a travel visum anymore and thus negatively impact her career.

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

#106
Meta comment: this story is the future of geopolitics. A confusing mess of different narratives, each backed up with a cornucopia of digital “evidence.” It is still unclear to me exactly what happened here. All I can be certain of is that all participants are incentivized to spin a story in their own favor.

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

#107
post #36

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.

Also following what I wrote nearby:

curiously, you mention "ISIS", and a practice like "If you have ties with people we dislike there will be consequences for you" is one of the few correctly attributed instances for the concept of terrorism.

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

#108
post #74
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…

In the US, tweeting critically about Israel would probably be the bigger risk. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Salaita_hiring_contro...

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

#109
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you angered america, or the US political parties Or women or trans people or nonbinary people. It's like , if you don't draw a hard line, the virus keeps expanding

Look, I get it. Cancel culture isn’t healthy for our society, but can we be realistic about our examples? JKR is doing just fine after posting her transphobic screed last year. The various lawmakers across the US that sponsored anti-trans legislation this year haven’t been forcibly removed from office. Leading up to the presidential debates last year, speakers at the RNC made explicitly transphobic comments. Trump hi…

First of all , these are rich people whose removal would be largely inconsequential to their livelihood. Under them you 'll find a sea of people who are self-censoring because their positions are much more precarious, and they see the whims of the mob.

> haven’t been forcibly removed from office

Second i find this insinuation that a mob should be able to remove elected people from office problematic

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

#110

Well, buried in the middle of this article is an important point: > In fact, as of the fall 2019 semester, Gerber had been officially enrolled only at the university in China, not at St. Gallen. So he was a Swiss person doing a PhD at a Chinese university. His relationship with the professor at the Swiss university was an unofficial one, so the word 'dismissal' here is pretty misleading. No information about what hap…

I think the message is a different one.

More along the lines, 'Even in Switzerland the political pressure of China affects the freedom of speech'.

The part that you leave out is that the university actually recommended to the student that he should terminate/suspend his enrollment in the first place. To me it looks like the university is using the fact that he wasn't enrolled anymore as some kind of damage control to distance itself from the events.

You are right, the actual facts are not very strong (in terms of legal action), but I think it is a good 'I have nothing to hide...' example.

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