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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

#111

Post by bmn__ »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #67
unabirra wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the post praises BLM and criticizes MAGA... Lots of people have lost their jobs (and even dropped from public funded colleges) because of this. Not sure if you are really not aware of this, or if your comment is not in good faith.

Is that true? I had a quick search and i only found one case - a Michael J Dale covered in various outlets alleging dismissal for MAGA support back in 2018. However, i cant find that the case actually went to court. It appears Michael has decided against testing his claim in court? I can find some cases for the opposite - dismissal for criticising president Trimp: Jeff Klinzman had his day in court and was awarded a…

> I had a quick search and i only found one case

Cases (as in court cases) are just the easily visible tip of the iceberg. We do not see the aggrieved who did not make their story public for whatever reason.

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

#112

Post by ungamedplayer »

thelopa wrote: post #66
cblconfederate wrote: post #59

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…

None of the 'larger' more affluent people.. sure.

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

#113

Post by ghufran_syed »

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…

Totally agree - he is studying china, lived in china, has a chinese girlfriend in china who advised him to stop the critical tweets…and he just kept doing it anyway???

“His girlfriend was shocked when she saw some of the tweets. Talking with him on the telephone, she begged him to stop. Not because she necessarily disagreed with anything. But because she was worried about retaliation by the Chinese government. «I'm in Switzerland, not China,» Gerber replied. «I can say what I want here.»

Sorry to sound harsh, but I would argue that level of naivety / ignorance pretty much should disqualify him from a PhD in anything related to modern day China.

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

#114

Post by [deleted] »

yann2 wrote: post #73
casualracism wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What happens if I study cockroaches? Chinese cockroaches to be specific. Am I allowed to post cartoons about them? What about bears?

[deleted]

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

#115

Post by jollybean »

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.

Why are you comparing blatantly racist actions with mild, indirect criticism of a government?

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

#116

Post by bmn__ »

imwillofficial wrote: post #84
option wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sometimes being critical of totalitarian government is a sign of bravery. Especially for those with the skin in the game.

“totalitarian” sounds like propaganda This is from the country responsible for the patriot act

"tu quoque" detected, argument is invalid

There are countries in the world who do not have a patriot act or similar. They can argue in place of the USA that the government of the country discussed in the article is totalitarian.

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

#117

Post by casualracism »

jollybean wrote: post #115
casualracism wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why are you comparing blatantly racist actions with mild, indirect criticism of a government?

What are you even talking about? Posting racist cartoon depicting stereotypes about Chinese is exactly what the Chinese studies PhD student did, so this is an exact parallel.

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

#118

Post by mdp2021 »

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…

> In a press release, Lopez says "this is a move so perverse, so grotesque as to defy explanation. Preventing people from entering the country because their friends critiqued the U.S. on social media shows an astounding disregard for the principle of free speech. The idea that Ajjawi should be prevented from taking his place at Harvard because of his own political speech would be alarming; that he should be denied this opportunity based on the speech of others is downright lawless."

I would replace the terms used by Lopez, from "astounding disregard for the principle of free speech" to "astounding disregard for the principle of justice". (Which, I rant, has been devastated in many places in the past 18 months.)

Theoretically, though, I understand from some publications that there is an ongoing debate in national security agencies about the thresholds to be observed between false positives and false negatives. Meaning: not that the authorities believed such judgement sensible or fair, but they probably delegated their sense of fairness to a top-down mandate of "better safe than sorry". Which, in the encouraged alienation from good sense, creates these monstrosities.

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

#119

Post by phreeza »

Regardless of the merits of this case, I think it is interesting to also consider if the reverse could conceivably happen. Could a Chinese professor become worried about travel visa to the US because one of their students starts posting things critical of the US? I think for a Chinese professor the answer is perhaps not immediately obvious, but if you switch it to a professor from an Arabic country, I think the concern would definitely be valid. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if there is a lot of self-censorship like this going on already.

Edit: in fact, in a different thread, perihelions posted an instance of such a visa denial happening in the US.

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

#120

Post by bmn__ »

Aunche wrote: post #40
exo-pla-net wrote: post #14

This is an article spun to make controversy out of nothing. The narrative is that a student tweeted something critical about China, and the CCP pressured his advisor into dropping him. The reality is that the student published a tweet that "depicted a comic character that had been altered and had stereotyped Chinese features, with yellow skin tone and slit eyes". This understandably was perceived as racist by a Chine…

It's convenient to believe that your enemy is so fragile that they're threatened by a twitterer with a dozen followers. I don't see how that does one any good outside a feeling of smug superiority. China is building a frightening amount soft power through trade deals and building goodwill. That's what people should be talking about, not China supposedly censoring angry opinions that can be found anywhere else on the…

> It's convenient to believe that your enemy is so fragile

There is ample evidence that they are butt-hurt by the tiniest criticism – intentioned or not, real or imagined, by inclusion or by omission – which would not even count as an affront under most other circumstances. The psychic trauma that is amenable to a degree for this response unfortunately is deeply seated and difficult to shake loose.

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