171–180 of 189 posts
[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-14/china-backlash-austral...
[2] http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/the-...
[3] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-af...
[4] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/us-politics/aust...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps if you're a researcher at a university and you get an interesting business offer out of the blue in exchange for access to something (maybe data you've gathered), you may be a bit more wary and consider if you're being manipulated by another government's intelligence service.
Why do I care precisely who is manipulating me?
The FBI never changes, does it? I’m not even saying that they’re wrong, but stating it this way is just fodder for bin fires. It would be strange if China and others didn’t do this, and strange if the US didn’t do it to them.
Of course we do and of course they do. What's interesting is why the sudden "expose" and the media blitz. It's like how we knew the russians and everyone has been taking steroids for decades, but all of a sudden there was a media blitz against russia. Is it just the elites trying to put pressure on china or are we at the beginning stages of a fundamental shift in our relations with china? Have the elites decided on a…
while I recognize there may be impacts to such a decision, I feel apathetic about the decisions of "the elite". I sometimes imagine that we would all benefit from taking this view.
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>Is there such thing as a scientific definition that states unambiguously where any one race ends and another begins" No, that's why it's in scare quotes.
Fair point. I think DJT has already desensitized me to details like capitalization and quoting.
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The FBI is not warning about students, but about government agents posing ad students, I.E. "operatives". Here, they have access to learn and potentially influence our culture from within. Most importantly, if the FBI is correct and they exist, they most likely do not have your interests in mind. That said, I don't know how one would deal with this without causing McCarthy style hysteria and sweeping up innocent stud…
> The FBI is not warning about students, but about government agents posing ad students, I.E. "operatives". What is the distinction here? I do not generally expect international students on a student visa, with no intention of becoming citizens, to forget about the interests of their home country and prioritize the interests of the country they're visiting. They're here because the school is good, that's it.
Such sentiment would be naive. Particularly in an authoritarian nation swarming with propaganda. There are plenty of children potentially willing to dedicate themselves to the interests of the party, whether for perceived virtue, or fear of retribution.
During my undergrad university days (at the University of Utah), I took some Mandarin classes. There was a local Confucius Institute which provided various free materials in Chinese to the campus library. The extent of my direct contact with them was receiving a couple hundred dollars for doing well in a Mandarin speech contest they held for my class. It was obvious that there was a certain propaganda aspect to this…
Why would you expect the Confucius Institute to provide information on the negatives of Chinese government? It's a Chinese culture organization, and it's directly affiliated with the government of China.
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> The FBI is not warning about students, but about government agents posing ad students, I.E. "operatives". What is the distinction here? I do not generally expect international students on a student visa, with no intention of becoming citizens, to forget about the interests of their home country and prioritize the interests of the country they're visiting. They're here because the school is good, that's it.
You dont think that Chinese espionage does not potentially extend to our colleges? You dont think the U.S. is doing at least as much elsewhere? All this talk of collusion with Russia recently doesn't bother you either if it is true that a foreign power could have targeted our culture successfully to the point that they threw an election in their favor? Such sentiment would be naive. Particularly in an authoritarian n…
Well, no, I'm not sure what "espionage" would mean here? Does it mean stealing information? Doubtful. Unionizing graduate students? Hard to believe. Thwarting the education of others? Haven't seen it. While the Chinese may be placing people into positions at American universities with the idea that they might one day be useful, I'm not sure what would could as espionage. If anything I'd guess the "operatives" would mostly be keeping track of the activities of other Chinese students, and possibly serving as conduits for more covert operatives, but I'm doubtful they are doing anything that would legally qualify as espionage.
You dont think the U.S. is doing at least as much elsewhere?
You'd have to be clearer about what the "as much" is, but I'm doubtful the US is putting much effort into putting operatives into academic positions abroad. Probably they want to open channels of communication with people who are already there, but I'm doubtful we're doing anything particularly effective involving "fake" students. And again, what would the goal of this be?
All this talk of collusion with Russia recently doesn't bother you
Seems worth investigating, but no, nothing I've heard so far bothers me. There are lots of countries that have great interest in affecting/effecting US policies, and I'd presume that Russia would be one of them. I'm doubtful they were particularly effective in influencing an election, though, or even that they were the country with the greatest influence. This is the place where I assume the US is doing much more with regard to other country's elections, possibly with greater impact.
Particularly in an authoritarian nation swarming with propaganda.
I don't know your politics well enough to know if you mean China, Russia, or the US here? If you point is that there likely exist Chinese students who are willing to do what the Chinese government asks them in return for being allowed to study abroad, then sure. But I'd guess that most of what is being asked is "Learn everything they will teach you and then come home and build a better China", and I think that's a good thing?
Australia has of late had its own issues involving accusations of Chinese espionage as well as good old-fashioned palm-greasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Dastyari#Chinese_influence... If the US starts clamping down on this sort of thing, expect China to accuse the US government of xenophobia, since of course "we'd like to stop so many Chinese agents and toadies from infiltrating our governmental and educatio…
Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw the racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all sorts of political interference and other meddling... Alas, they cannot make such accusations. At most they can use "xenophobia".
And from reading left-leaning discussion forums (HN included) you'd think they have a point. Try mentioning anything about Russia and see how long it takes until someone suggests it's probably Putin's friends doing it (Telegram is a great recurring example here on HN [2]).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You dont think that Chinese espionage does not potentially extend to our colleges? You dont think the U.S. is doing at least as much elsewhere? All this talk of collusion with Russia recently doesn't bother you either if it is true that a foreign power could have targeted our culture successfully to the point that they threw an election in their favor? Such sentiment would be naive. Particularly in an authoritarian n…
You dont think that Chinese espionage does not potentially extend to our colleges? Well, no, I'm not sure what "espionage" would mean here? Does it mean stealing information? Doubtful. Unionizing graduate students? Hard to believe. Thwarting the education of others? Haven't seen it. While the Chinese may be placing people into positions at American universities with the idea that they might one day be useful, I'm not…
After all, these students are future leaders. Understanding how to manipulate them or weaken them and their futures, or how to sow divisiveness amongst them or other Americans...
Wouldn't such information make it easier to at least, say, pose plausibly as influential "trolls" with relevant cultural content on the internet?
Just as in software, one doesn't necessarily need to anticipate a specific threat to recognize attack surface.