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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

#92

> In the United States too, a quarter of the country’s Confucius Institutes have been shut down in recent years. Universities no longer wanted to give legitimacy to an institution that defended fundamentally different values. Well, that makes a statement about the purpose of a university.

[flagged]

As a DoD contractor, Navy veteran with my submarine warfare qual

This is such fucking bullshit

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

#93
post #46
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is she? I love China and if somebody pulls a stunt like that that may blow up in my face I would take action too. Think about if you were in CS and a student of your would post some ISIS shit on the internet and you were threatened with a travel ban to the US. I think most people would think twice.

Supporting free Hong Kong and Taiwan isn’t really comparable to supporting ISIS. The “he is an anti Chinese racist” rhetoric seems stretched by the fact that he spent so much time there, his romantic partner is Chinese, he seems to have a friends network there.

Having a Chinese partner is not guaranteed for not racism. This reminds me of the local case. A British Expat married to a local and posting racist comments on social media. His defense was the local failed to understand the British joke.

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

#94

Well, buried in the middle of this article is an important point: > In fact, as of the fall 2019 semester, Gerber had been officially enrolled only at the university in China, not at St. Gallen. So he was a Swiss person doing a PhD at a Chinese university. His relationship with the professor at the Swiss university was an unofficial one, so the word 'dismissal' here is pretty misleading. No information about what hap…

There's information on his Swiss PhD program in the article. The Swiss University advised him to de-register so he could maintain years of eligibility or whatever, and the Swiss advisor continued to supervise him obviously. The University had told him that re-registering upon his return would be "no problem" with the support of the advisor. So he kind of got caught in a transitional stage where he has no options if a dispute with the advisor arises. Maybe it's not fair to criticize the University administration for this, but it's not accurate to simply describe him as unaffiliated and making up fake news or something.

As for the Canadian student, the quotes from the professor herself are what say the complaints came "from China". Perhaps she meant from the Chinese student in Canada, but if so that's her error, not the author's.

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

#95

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…

The story goes: dude studies in china. Is in Switzerland bc of corona. Starts posting anti CCP on Twitter. Posts racist picture, some chinese PhD student in Canada sees it. Emails his supervisor. Supervisor sees it and decides that she doesn't want to work with someone who posts racist pictures (for the wrong reason not bc of the picture but because she fears she will get excluded if she publishes with him). This is all very plausible imo if one could actually see the picture which conveniently isn't included.

This is not saying anything about the CCPs control over research which is a very serious topic. As long as I don't see the relevant picture. It's a researcher not wanting to publish with a someone who posts racist stuff.

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

original tweets need to contained within articles like this. Timelines should be standard, before the body of the argument. Way too easy to spin a narrative for an audience hungry to believe.

anti-asian propaganda is thriving right now

sadly, there is a thirst for it.

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

#97

Well, buried in the middle of this article is an important point: > In fact, as of the fall 2019 semester, Gerber had been officially enrolled only at the university in China, not at St. Gallen. So he was a Swiss person doing a PhD at a Chinese university. His relationship with the professor at the Swiss university was an unofficial one, so the word 'dismissal' here is pretty misleading. No information about what hap…

Thank you! I am glad to see people are actually reading the articles. Last time this was published no one even bothered to note that there was no intervention from China whatsoever. Following the same logic a hotel worker losing their job because an American tourist complained can say that the United States got them fired.. The comments critical of the CCP in this thread prove that confirmation bias is alive and well…

Yes, there is no concrete intervention that the CCP did. Still, a supervisor broke off their contact with a promising student based on either the fear of retribution or personal feelings of nationalism. That culture is the product of CCP censorship and many people don't want it in the western world.

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

#98

The content of this article clearly shows how hurt the concept of free speach is nowadays. You tweet some stuff and you're life is destroyed. Simple. No warning or whatsoever, you just destroy your life because you angered China.

I am afraid this is just an effect of the deeper problem - bestial behaviour emerged as norm. A fall towards low quality ethics, including intellectual thresholds, including thresholds of elaboration (meditated vs rushed).

(The latter seems to also be very relevant to the student.)

In anecdotal form bestial behaviours ("I was forced to fire you having received pressure from a priest because you are kind to that boy of a different cult" - real example, probably not rare, of an episode of 50 years ago in Europe) have probably always been common, but today they seem to be less of individuals and more of groups ("that nobody in a costume in tinytown" vs "the assumedly respectable entity"), less exceptions and more norm ("it happened" vs "it happens").

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

#99
post #46
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is she? I love China and if somebody pulls a stunt like that that may blow up in my face I would take action too. Think about if you were in CS and a student of your would post some ISIS shit on the internet and you were threatened with a travel ban to the US. I think most people would think twice.

Supporting free Hong Kong and Taiwan isn’t really comparable to supporting ISIS. The “he is an anti Chinese racist” rhetoric seems stretched by the fact that he spent so much time there, his romantic partner is Chinese, he seems to have a friends network there.

Ah yes. The old, "I can't be racist. I have black friends" defense.
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