How China turns members of its diaspora into spies

Post by peutetre » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 9:42 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #122

thinkingemote wrote: post #79

In the UK Chinese funded international masters/phd students have to send back to China reports about their fellow students as a condition of their funding. There's no mandatory spying expected if the position is funded privately or by the host institution. I expect that the spying is just limited to their fellow state funded students although I have heard of significant tension between mainland and Hong Kong students…

I'm shocked this is a thread on HN. Until recently these threads were flagged and removed from HN, and participants to conversations stating these things were warned of possible future bans. It looks like the conversation has changed quite dramatically. The geopolitical tone has trickled down to tech and VC. Firms like a16z are going all in on "American dynamism", which is basically about competition with China. It's…

Post by peutetre » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 10:14 PM UTC

protomolecule wrote: post #89

throw10920 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Soon enough anything that is even remotely a security threat [...] will require clearance and in office work. I think this is one of those things that sucks but may be necessary. You need to trust the knowledge workers that make up your economy to not send your research to a hostile nation so they can take advantage of your R&D investments. And you need to know that your critical infrastructure (beyond Internet and…

[flagged]

Post by A_D_E_P_T » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 10:50 PM UTC

onjectic wrote: post #202

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Memphis had 63.9 homicides per 100,000 people in 2023. I don't have stats for individual Chinese cities, but China's rate is 0.46 per 100,000 people. In China, it's plausible that the cities are safer than the countryside, and I don't think that Beijing's number is substantially higher than the national average. Basically, you are 139x more likely to be murdered in Memphis.

It’s comical that you are comparing Memphis to China. But lets take this even further and increase our sample set from just Jan 2023 - Dec 2023, to Jan 1923 - Dec 2023, this is more indicative of the downsides of authoritarianism, and clearly shows Memphis as less homicidal than China.

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 11:35 PM UTC

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #152

asdff wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine walking around Memphis at midnight, alone and unarmed Says it all about your biases that you seriously think this is actually a dangerous proposition in terms of real statistical risk.

Memphis had 63.9 homicides per 100,000 people in 2023. I don't have stats for individual Chinese cities, but China's rate is 0.46 per 100,000 people. In China, it's plausible that the cities are safer than the countryside, and I don't think that Beijing's number is substantially higher than the national average. Basically, you are 139x more likely to be murdered in Memphis.

Post by RonaldDump » Sun, Dec 29, 2024, 11:44 PM UTC

mmooss wrote: post #184

DarkNova6 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some chinese people very well and even they have been warning about spies on campus for years. I don’t buy the xenophobia argument.

Regardless of who you know, don't you think these claims are partly driven by, and drive, xenophobia - the same xenophobia and nationalism being applied to many things?