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Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

newyorker.com

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Re: Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

#11

Post by krapp »

luciusdomitius wrote: post #8
krapp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. Americans would call Ronald Reagan a Marxist nowadays. Only a nation without any semblance of actual leftism in its body politic could be so confused. Also, you appear to be referring obliquely to Cultural Marxism[0], a right-wing conspiracy theory originally created by Nazis linking Western intellectualism and academia to a secret Communist or Marxist agenda. In the context of the linked article, the Trump-era…

[flagged]

So your rebuttal is... that cultural Marxists took over Wikipedia and edited the article for cultural Marxism in order to make themselves look like anti-Semites? You're right, that is ridiculous.

Fine then, here are some articles from the Guardian[0], the Conversation [1] and SPLC[2]. Let me guess... all of those were taken over by cultural Marxists as well?

The fact is TFA doesn't even have anything to do with Marxism in academia. You just saw the words "Chinese" and "American campuses" in the title and got triggered, which doesn't help disprove the thesis that belief in "cultural Marxism" is fundamentally rooted in xenophobia.

[0]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/cultur...

[1]https://theconversation.com/is-cultural-marxism-really-takin...

[2]https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/...

Re: Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

#12

Post by malermeister »

luciusdomitius wrote: post #8
krapp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. Americans would call Ronald Reagan a Marxist nowadays. Only a nation without any semblance of actual leftism in its body politic could be so confused. Also, you appear to be referring obliquely to Cultural Marxism[0], a right-wing conspiracy theory originally created by Nazis linking Western intellectualism and academia to a secret Communist or Marxist agenda. In the context of the linked article, the Trump-era…

[flagged]

Please stop spreading a conspiracy theory started by the literal Nazis.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Bolshevism

Re: Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

#14

Post by temp8964 »

Why can't journalists use honest titles for their reports? This is simply a story about one single case. The report tries to spin this as if it represents a wide-ranging phenomenon.

Did soviet spies infiltrate American state department and other government agencies during the cold war? Yes. Were there cases of wrong accusations? Yes. But you can't simply point out a case of wrong accusation and deny the wide-ranging infiltration of soviet spies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_espionage_in_the_United...

The wide-ranging of recruiting of U.S. academics by the Chinese government is no secret at all. It is self-evident by the Thousand Talents Plan. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Talents_Plan ). Many of the involved academics did so secretly and illegally. They are not necessarily "spies", nor were they commonly accused of being "spies". The article created a strawman narrative, and then try to debunk the strawman with a single case, for the whole purpose of creating an xenophobia narrative.

Re: Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

#15

Post by helen___keller »

temp8964 wrote: post #14

Why can't journalists use honest titles for their reports? This is simply a story about one single case. The report tries to spin this as if it represents a wide-ranging phenomenon. Did soviet spies infiltrate American state department and other government agencies during the cold war? Yes. Were there cases of wrong accusations? Yes. But you can't simply point out a case of wrong accusation and deny the wide-ranging…

The article is definitely making an emotional appeal here. For the numbers supporting it I recommend looking at the criticism section of the Wikipedia article on the China Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Initiative and you’ll find some appalling figures (like 50% dropped charges on academics so far, which indicates feds are more than willing to bring make arrests and bring charges when they don’t even have a strong case for their allegations, ie witch-hunts against Chinese academics)

> They are not necessarily "spies", nor were they commonly accused of being "spies".

The charges don’t indicate they are spies, but if you read the indictments of e.g. Gang Cheng, it repeatedly accuses him of being loyal to China, which is all but calling him a spy

> The wide-ranging of recruiting of U.S. academics by the Chinese government is no secret at all. It is self-evident by the Thousand Talents Plan. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Talents_Plan ).

Indeed, academics have been ensnared by political bullshit. The way I call it is China offered the carrot and USA offered the stick. If you want to work with China, the Chinese government will be more than happy to reward you; if you are caught working with China, USG will be more than happy to throw you into prison and try to ruin your life (even without enough evidence to convict, as in at least half of this cases)

Frankly, I wish I could say we were winning the battle over academia using free speech and anti-authoritarianism, but it appears being anti-China is the best we can do

Re: Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

#16

Post by Jtype »

usednet wrote: post #7

In mere decades the nation will look back at these cases against respectable academics as what they truly are: blatant, nonsensical xenophobia. Academic collaboration is “Chinese ties?” Incredible that these cases are even being sent to trial with 0 evidence of these professors sending any kind of sensitive information to China.

So you don't believe that a country with a long history of stealing technology IP would have spies in the Universities that are doing cutting edge research in those areas?

Re: Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

#17

Post by throw4887643 »

Jtype wrote: post #16
usednet wrote: post #7

In mere decades the nation will look back at these cases against respectable academics as what they truly are: blatant, nonsensical xenophobia. Academic collaboration is “Chinese ties?” Incredible that these cases are even being sent to trial with 0 evidence of these professors sending any kind of sensitive information to China.

So you don't believe that a country with a long history of stealing technology IP would have spies in the Universities that are doing cutting edge research in those areas?

Japan had “a long history of stealing technology IP” until they didn’t. Then it was South Korea that “a long history of stealing technology IP” until they didn’t.

Now it’s China getting blamed. I wonder which country will be next? India?

Re: Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

#18

Post by temp8964 »

helen___keller wrote: post #15
temp8964 wrote: post #14

Why can't journalists use honest titles for their reports? This is simply a story about one single case. The report tries to spin this as if it represents a wide-ranging phenomenon. Did soviet spies infiltrate American state department and other government agencies during the cold war? Yes. Were there cases of wrong accusations? Yes. But you can't simply point out a case of wrong accusation and deny the wide-ranging…

The article is definitely making an emotional appeal here. For the numbers supporting it I recommend looking at the criticism section of the Wikipedia article on the China Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Initiative and you’ll find some appalling figures (like 50% dropped charges on academics so far, which indicates feds are more than willing to bring make arrests and bring charges when they don’t eve…

"we were winning the battle". I am not sure who is "we" here and what "winning" means. Yes, there is a perspective that Chinese Americans should not be discriminated because of what the Chinese government is doing and what some of the Chinese Americans are doing. But, please stop kidding ourselves that this is the only perspective of the story.

A larger battle does exist is that the authoritarian Chinese government is exploiting our open society and stealing technology and business secretes through using mainly Chinese Americans who want to make financial gains. And we are NOT winning this battle.

And the unfortunate truth is that the authoritarian Chinese government benefits from both battles. If we let them use Chinese Americans to steal technology and business, they win. If we over-react, they win too.

Re: Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

#19

Post by helen___keller »

temp8964 wrote: post #18
helen___keller wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is definitely making an emotional appeal here. For the numbers supporting it I recommend looking at the criticism section of the Wikipedia article on the China Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Initiative and you’ll find some appalling figures (like 50% dropped charges on academics so far, which indicates feds are more than willing to bring make arrests and bring charges when they don’t eve…

"we were winning the battle". I am not sure who is "we" here and what "winning" means. Yes, there is a perspective that Chinese Americans should not be discriminated because of what the Chinese government is doing and what some of the Chinese Americans are doing. But, please stop kidding ourselves that this is the only perspective of the story. A larger battle does exist is that the authoritarian Chinese government i…

> “we were winning the battle". I am not sure who is "we" here and what "winning" means.

We = the west (or USA specifically if you prefer)

Winning = attracting and retaining the loyalties of intellectual talent

> A larger battle does exist is that the authoritarian Chinese government is exploiting our open society and stealing technology and business secretes

This is one chapter in the story. China experienced heavy brain drain, especially from the 90s to the aughts. espionage and theft of western intellectual property was essentially state-sanctioned because Chinas intellectual power couldn’t match the west’s.

It’s now the 2020s. China wants to become the intellectual powerhouse of the world and wants to bring back all their brilliant scientists who left the homeland to make lives in the west.

The battle is over which country will be the one struggling to retain intellectual talent in the next 1, 2, 3 decades. Hopefully we recognize this now, not when we learn 北大 is the top reach school for American high school class of 20xx

Re: Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

#20

Post by InfiniteRand »

usednet wrote: post #6
luciusdomitius wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I quote Zizek from the Peterson debate - “Where are these postmodern Marxists?” The number of universities offering any sort of heterodox economics in the US is in the low tens. As somebody with an economics degree, I’d love for you to prove that the average western university even teaches about Marxism at all.

While I think you are correct that Marxist economics is out of the mainstream in US Academics, I find that Marxism still has its advocates within history departments as well as sociology and liberal arts fields.

My alma mater still has an undergraduate course on Communism whose professor had a reputation of being a staunch but not uncritical Marxist

https://history.rutgers.edu/academics/undergraduate/course-d...

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