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Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

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Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#91

Post by Barrin92 »

beebmam wrote: post #90
jaggednad wrote: post #65

From a purely self-interested perspective, this is the dumbest thing the US could possibly do. There are talented people who want to leave China and come study and work in the US. We are basically stealing China’s best minds. Now we’re telling them they can’t come and shipping them back? I don’t think we should have conflict with China, but, if you are looking for conflict with China, sending brilliant minds back to…

Are you seriously saying that the children of the wealthiest families in China are "China's best minds"? Please, show me some evidence for this egregious claim. There is no such thing as modern Chinese meritocracy.

>Are you seriously saying that the children of the wealthiest families in China are "China's best minds"?

As we've seen with the recent scandals (and we also knew before), the wealthiest American attendees are hardly America's best minds either.

Don't think this is a problem that only applies to foreign students. If you want to remove wealth advantages for top tier universities I'm all for it, but it's a bad club to use in this debate.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#92

Post by ojbyrne »

ekianjo wrote: post #38
nneonneo wrote: post #9

Students from China (and many other countries) are required to renew their visas annually, a process which is already quite nerve-wracking for many. PhDs in particular can take anywhere from 4 to 8 years to complete, meaning 4-8 chances for your studies to be interrupted with the only option to return home while the visa renewal stalls. This article explicitly calls out the fact that renewals seem to have been gettin…

> . If they further hamstring themselves by excluding Chinese students, the decline of American science will accelerate dramatically it is a strange assumption to make since by all counts the US is already the country in the world with the most diverse population. It is not as if science is only the work of students or even in particular foreign students...

Citation needed, and the colloquialism is actually “by all accounts.” Here is one for you: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/18/the-most-an...

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#93

Post by toomanyrichies »

ajmurmann wrote: post #75
potatofarmer45 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question, is these bright minds never spent 10 years at MIT or Harvard, and instead spent it at Peking University, would be they be of the same caliber?

Probably not. However, does it matter? If we take some of the best and brightest from China and make them even better, why would it matter if they'd otherwise be still some of China's best and brightest but less well trained? Regardless the US wins and China loses very talented people.

> does it matter?

It matters if they return to China with their American education and:

-engage in nation-state attacks on behalf of the PLA [1], or

-build facial-recognition software to further repress the Uyghur community [2], or

-contribute to the "social credit" system which makes it next-to-impossible for everyday Chinese to express anything other than unvarnished support of the ruling party [3], or

-eavesdrop on advocates for democracy in Hong Kong [4], or

-build advanced weapons systems that are then installed on newly-constructed islands in the South China Sea [5], or

-conduct industrial espionage on behalf of Chinese companies with key government contacts or PLA-connected C-level execs [6], or

-participate in advanced research projects like quantum satellites which could give China a persistent strategic advantage against the NSA [7], or

-install facial recognition technology in primary-school and middle-school classrooms to enhance indoctrination methods at an earlier age [8], or

-any other number of future scenarios we haven't even discussed.

I'm not saying every overseas Chinese student fits this description. While living in Shanghai for almost 6 years, I encountered quite a few that were open to democratic ideals and skeptical of their government's propaganda. However, there is also a non-trivial amount of nationalism among everyday Chinese, and the CCP is capable of directing it against the US anytime it sees fit, through its monopoly of mainland media outlets (and increasingly, non-mainland ones as well) [9].

I don't pretend to have a solution to this problem. But I think it may be short-sighted to expect Chinese students to be wooed by the wonders of democracy after a short-term study-abroad program in a country whose democracy is flawed at best.

------------

Sources:

[1] https://www.cbronline.com/what-is/what-is-pla-unit-61398-and...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/apr/11/china-hi-tech-w...

[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-p...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_China#Hon...

[5] https://futurism.com/the-byte/australia-chinese-lasers-milit...

[6] https://www.globaldots.com/chinese-spying-chips-found-hidden...

[7] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/china-s-quantum-sate...

[8] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-school-facial-recognit...

[9] https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/speak-no-evi...

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#94

Post by inflatableDodo »

vuln wrote: post #50
TehCorwiz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

There have been some reports regarding Chinese students being spies. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/01/politics/us-intelligence-chin... https://www.wired.com/story/china-spy-recruitment-us/

I suspect that if countries went tit for tat on banning students from abroad because of spies, studying abroad would stop being a thing altogether.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#95

Post by hyperbovine »

beebmam wrote: post #90
jaggednad wrote: post #65

From a purely self-interested perspective, this is the dumbest thing the US could possibly do. There are talented people who want to leave China and come study and work in the US. We are basically stealing China’s best minds. Now we’re telling them they can’t come and shipping them back? I don’t think we should have conflict with China, but, if you are looking for conflict with China, sending brilliant minds back to…

Are you seriously saying that the children of the wealthiest families in China are "China's best minds"? Please, show me some evidence for this egregious claim. There is no such thing as modern Chinese meritocracy.

Important to distinguish between undergrad and graduate here. The "rich kids from China" phenomenon is mainly about undergraduates doing 4-year degrees. This article suggests that Trump wants to crack down on Chinese graduate students, where admission is much more merit based. If true, this is a terrible idea.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#96

Post by ulfw »

beebmam wrote: post #90
jaggednad wrote: post #65

From a purely self-interested perspective, this is the dumbest thing the US could possibly do. There are talented people who want to leave China and come study and work in the US. We are basically stealing China’s best minds. Now we’re telling them they can’t come and shipping them back? I don’t think we should have conflict with China, but, if you are looking for conflict with China, sending brilliant minds back to…

Are you seriously saying that the children of the wealthiest families in China are "China's best minds"? Please, show me some evidence for this egregious claim. There is no such thing as modern Chinese meritocracy.

Neither is there an American one.

Wealthy Americans can and have bought their way into Harvard, Stanford et. al. left and right.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#97

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

toomanyrichies wrote: post #93
ajmurmann wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. However, does it matter? If we take some of the best and brightest from China and make them even better, why would it matter if they'd otherwise be still some of China's best and brightest but less well trained? Regardless the US wins and China loses very talented people.

> does it matter? It matters if they return to China with their American education and: -engage in nation-state attacks on behalf of the PLA [1], or -build facial-recognition software to further repress the Uyghur community [2], or -contribute to the "social credit" system which makes it next-to-impossible for everyday Chinese to express anything other than unvarnished support of the ruling party [3], or -eavesdrop o…

Every one of your scenarios has an American analog. You're basically reading off the script of the two minutes hate.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#98

Post by ulfw »

potatofarmer45 wrote: post #73
jaggednad wrote: post #65

From a purely self-interested perspective, this is the dumbest thing the US could possibly do. There are talented people who want to leave China and come study and work in the US. We are basically stealing China’s best minds. Now we’re telling them they can’t come and shipping them back? I don’t think we should have conflict with China, but, if you are looking for conflict with China, sending brilliant minds back to…

The question, is these bright minds never spent 10 years at MIT or Harvard, and instead spent it at Peking University, would be they be of the same caliber?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsinghua_University

Tsinghua in Beijing is one of the world's foremost universities. A ton of Chinese leaders and also two Nobel laureates come from there.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#99

Post by beebmam »

hyperbovine wrote: post #95
beebmam wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously saying that the children of the wealthiest families in China are "China's best minds"? Please, show me some evidence for this egregious claim. There is no such thing as modern Chinese meritocracy.

Important to distinguish between undergrad and graduate here. The "rich kids from China" phenomenon is mainly about undergraduates doing 4-year degrees. This article suggests that Trump wants to crack down on Chinese graduate students, where admission is much more merit based. If true, this is a terrible idea.

Fair enough, good point.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#100

Post by markchen90 »

beebmam wrote: post #90
jaggednad wrote: post #65

From a purely self-interested perspective, this is the dumbest thing the US could possibly do. There are talented people who want to leave China and come study and work in the US. We are basically stealing China’s best minds. Now we’re telling them they can’t come and shipping them back? I don’t think we should have conflict with China, but, if you are looking for conflict with China, sending brilliant minds back to…

Are you seriously saying that the children of the wealthiest families in China are "China's best minds"? Please, show me some evidence for this egregious claim. There is no such thing as modern Chinese meritocracy.

The article discusses effects on doctoral students, not masters or undergrads. STEM PhD programs at top schools are a lot less pay-to-play.
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