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Comment by yholio | Hacker News Reader

It's a very weak response from Purdue. Zhihao Kong was bullied and followed around on campus for commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen masacre. He was called a CIA agent by fellow Purdue students and was reported to the Chinese state, who attempted to silence him by forcefully leaning on his family in Hong Kong.

The identities of the bullies is well known and the extent of abuse is borderline criminal. There should be only one remedy: imediate expulsion of any agent of repression of the Chinese state.

The statement clearly fall short of what is required, it simply wants to appease those outraged by threatening with vague punishments, without risking the large revenue from Chinese students.

View on HN

While it doesn't have the immediate satisifaction of a twitter pitchfork mob, I appreciate a measured approach IF there is serious (albeit slow moving) action taken. The last thing we need is an equally impactful response in the opposite direction. He's the head of the school and needs to balance a wide range of perspectives and demands. The context has been set so now I'm watching to see if the actions back it up. If not, you're right in your immediate assessment, but this has big geo-political implications and needs to take time. It's similar to the Meng Wanzhou extradition fiasco; she was under house arrest in a mansion while 2 Canadians languished in a Chinese prison. IT was completely unfair and imbalanced but we had to go through our process, not stoop to theirs.

>>The last thing we need is an equally impactful response in the opposite direction.

We need a MORE impactful response form this side, but it does not have to be instant.

And you are correct that it has to be carefully investigated, soundly based, and measured for maximum effect.

Ultimately, if you are a "student" here and are participating in state power projection, spying, or abuse of anyone merely participating in protected activities, we need to expel you not only from the school but from the country.

Would China tolerate US "students" on their land spying, attempting to project US power, or abusing others on their land? Not for a second, and we shouldn't either.

Moreover, stronger actions need to be taken to provide consequences to the CCP for attempting this kind of nonsense.

The CCP also needs to stop it from home, because the repeated spy cases of Chinese ppl in academia have already tainted the reputation of ALL Chinese students. I'm sure it is already shutting them out of interesting internships that might also use even CUI (Controlled Unclassified Data) in unrelated parts of the business.

> Would China tolerate US "students" on their land spying, attempting to project US power, or abusing others on their land?

China is the worlds weird abusive ex-boyfriend.

yup, abusive, and stalking. Including on HN - every single HN post that opposed CCP actions gets resistance from the handful of guaranteed downvotes to verbose advocacy. Russia has been the undisputed world champion of dezinformatsyia for over a century, but it looks like CCP is coming for their title , especially with their push into the US academic-military realm (and they are shameless about copying US tech, surprising for a culture that values face-saving).

> every single HN post that opposed CCP actions gets resistance from the handful of guaranteed downvotes to verbose advocacy

That is so extremely far from the case that I think it may be a classic example of the notice-dislike bias (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).

Perhaps. Indeed, I haven't done a controlled study.

It has just jumped out at me how consistently and reliably items on that topic generate those responses. It's also consistent with available open-source info on ops of the CCP and Russian govt. which include social media trolling to promote their POV, undermine rival POVs, and/or sow discord (and considering the ROI on such ops, they'd be negligent to not do them considering there's no resistance).

In any case, I'll take a closer look before commenting.

> It has just jumped out at me

I don't mean to pile on, but this is exactly the point: what jumps out at each of us is precisely the stuff that we find most disagreeable. If you had the opposite preference, opposite stuff would jump out. The effect that this has is very strong, and the conclusions it produces are completely unreliable. (I'm talking about all of us here, not you personally!)

>>I don't mean to pile on, I definitely don't see a good rebuttal as piling on, and this is a kinder way to start the rebuttal

>>but this is exactly the point, what jumps out at each of us is precisely the stuff that we find most disagreeable.

Yup, that is a good point, so I should be looking more strongly for that effect and contrary indicators as well.

Thx for being persistent enough to clarify.

China is banking on the hunch that it's impossible to rhetorically separate "China" and "Chinese", and that western powers or their citizens will fuck up and engage in hate crimes or war crimes that...

1. Unify the country around the People's Republic of China generally, and Xi Jinping specifically

2. Damage or destroy any alliances with western powers that China's neighbors might have

The absolute worst thing we can do right now is knee-jerk our way into blowback, and a lot of the reaction here seems to be that we should. In fact, I even read a report[0] stating that a lot of the recent government attempts to fish out Chinese spies have devolved into fishing expeditions against Chinese grad students in America. I'm tempted to say we're doing it wrong, but it could also be the case that we're just making the least-worst mistakes right now.

[0] which I absolutely wish I could find!

Just imagine the headlines if they did do something more impactful like taking a stance and expelling the relevant students. Many headlines would be conflating this expulsion with racism and who knows what other rhetoric. Not only that, but the university would be sued for years if they did this. Also, this guy would get fired in at-most a year. Not necessarily for his stance, but for rocking the boat and bringing so much attention to the university.

People don't realize just how much the rules are stacked in favor of bullies.

Perdue President Mitch Daniels said “Those seeking to deny those rights to others, let alone to collude with foreign governments in repressing them, will need to pursue their education elsewhere,” but there is no indication that the students have been expelled. The statement is bizarre and nonsensical if the students are not expelled.

It also sounds like they’d need proof they colluded with a foreign entity which is a very high bar.

> Those seeking to deny those rights to others

I'd say harassment falls into this category, so no proof of collusion with the CCP is needed.

If something is harassment or merely exercising their right to express their opinion is also a matter for subjective judgement and he said/she said type finger pointing, and highly dependent on context and frequency (which can be hard to find solid concrete evidence for without a lot of work).

It sounds like some of the students not only threatened to report him to the Chinese authorities, but told him that they had done so, and he has proof who made these threats and claims. They didn’t try to hide it.

If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?

I doubt Purdue (up to now) has any policy saying it’s illegal to report someone to authorities for something they did. Even if those authorities are not popular right now and the thing they did is ok at Perdue but not at home.

Is it a ‘dick move’ and offend our sensibilities? Sure.

But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were at a French university during the 50’s and someone called the FBI telling them that Bob was saying a lot of scary things about communism and just got a Russian Girlfriend and maybe they should look into it.

If it’s true, then of course the FBI is going to look into it. If true, it’s also unlikely to count as harassment. It’s also pretty terrible from 5 different angles.

People have been expelled from universities for videos where they used the N-word. I agree with imposing that consequence (unless it was in the distant past and the student has since shown genuine rehabilitation). Reporting someone to a regime which tortures, kills, and harvests the organs of dissenters is orders of magnitudes worse than using a racist slur.

I agree with you, but the Chinese government doesn’t, and they have a long reach. One we are free to ignore, but others seem hesitant to.

Purdue certainly has policy against harassment. Other students followed and directly harassed, Purdue is not the government so it doesn’t even need to weigh free speech or legality.

> If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?

Yes. Having the right to say or do something doesn't mean it isn't harassment. But more importantly, the 'students' making these reports/threats are acting as agents of the CCP, projecting the CCP's power into an American university, and should be ejected from the country for that. What they were doing was espionage.

> But that doesn’t mean it’s any different than if a bunch of folks from the US were at a French university during the 50’s and someone called the FBI telling them that Bob was saying a lot of scary things about communism and just got a Russian Girlfriend and maybe they should look into it.

I’m sorry, but is this supposed to be a counter point? This kind of behavior would have been ridiculous and unacceptable as well, unless said US citizen had access to state secrets or something of that nature.

^Fully agreed. That period in time is literally referred to as "Red Scare" and is considered to be a massive failure of an initiative based solely on fearmongering.

And yes, it is taught this way even in semi-rural high schools in southern US states as well (I attended a high school like that myself in GA about 10 years ago). It's like saying "well, US did the whole Trail of Tears thing centuries ago, so we can do a soft-genocide in 2021 as well with Uyghurs".

That type of an argument doesn't sound convincing in the eyes of anyone who doesn't already support what China is doing or some very vocal radical left minority (aka tankies and adjacent groups) in the west. For an example of the latter, just check r/sino, it feels like reading into some parallel universe.

I agree with you, though I will caveat that by noting that, as an american, we tend to amplify the faults of our enemies and downplay those of our Allie’s and ourselves. I am by no means a China apologist but the rhetoric between the US and China over the last several years in concerning to me. It feels like people are looking to make everything in this relationship in a good vs evil narrative, no matter which camp you’re in.

What is happening to the Uighurs is easy for me to point out as crossing the line. But something like Hong Kong? As a westerner I was to support democracy and self determination, but by the same token, Hong Kong is indisputably part of china’s sovereign territory and it seems like a lot of people in the US think it’s ok to promote separatism in another country just because it shares our values. Why don’t I ever hear anyone apply that to our allies? ( cough cough Saudi cough)

I find myself sympathetic to the talkie rhetoric not because I believe in communism, but because I grew up in a generation that was lied into the Iraq war, and see similarities with the mind of nationalism that swept the country in the early 2000s. America never really atoned for abu ghraib, gitmo, cia black sites, signature strikes etc. and to me that is way more relevant to anything that we did in the 19th century.

reflexively I am just repulsed by the nationalistic rhetoric on these issues.

> If they have a right to do that, is that harassment?

You can harass someone with legal activity, making it illegal. If I show up outside your house everyday and stand on the sidewalk with a concealed weapon that is obviously illegal harassment. Standing on the sidewalk might be legal, carrying a concealed weapon may be legal, harassing someone with either is not.

You're right. This is something we will all need to worry about in the event that we time Travel to the 50's. When that happens, I'll criticize the US government, and encourage the French university to expel the American students. I guess we will need to settle for dealing with today's problems until time travel is possible :(

> If it’s true, then of course the FBI is going to look into it. If true, it’s also unlikely to count as harassment. It’s also pretty terrible from 5 different angles.

Why? I think your false assumption here is that everything the university should care about, the FBI should care about to, which is simply not true. You can outright break the law and the FBI not care depending on the law. I don't know that this falls into the category of things the FBI would deal with.

Interestingly enough, in most of your examples you are wrong - legally.

And you seem to be rather completely misreading my comment.

I’m not saying anything that the CCP, the students, or the university is doing is RIGHT.

I’m saying it happens, and it happens a lot, and it’s happened here in the US recently, and it’s not as illegal or clearly stoppable as people here seem to think.

So watch your ass, anyone that thinks that some moral right to speak truth is going to save you without some serious planning or thinking ahead (like the student who spoke out) - because you may very well be a martyr for a cause you did not plan to.

Because I’m one of those who likes to speak out, and I’ve almost been steamrolled by something before. So watch your ass.

> Interestingly enough, in most of your examples you are wrong - legally.

Care to point out which?

> I’m saying it happens, and it happens a lot, and it’s happened here in the US recently, and it’s not as illegal or clearly stoppable as people here seem to think.

Harassment is clearly illegal. It has a legal definition and everything. That being said, it is hard to prove, which is where the complications actually lay. In this case, it seems like there is plenty of evidence though.

> So watch your ass, anyone that thinks that some moral right to speak truth is going to save you without some serious planning or thinking ahead (like the student who spoke out) - because you may very well be a martyr for a cause you did not plan to.

I don't see where this fits into the conversation. Are you saying people shouldn't speak out? Are you saying reporting harassment to the police is bad?

> Because I’m one of those who likes to speak out, and I’ve almost been steamrolled by something before. So watch your ass.

That's pretty vague.

Even a public university can decide what they want to do when it comes to punishment for students they admit. You aren't owed an explanation no matter how much you pretend on the internet to care.

A public university has to respect the constitutional rights of it's students though. So there would be very strong legal protection for pro China students.

Edit: actually not sure if they are foreign nationals. Maybe someone knows if same applies?

People have no problem bending the rules to punish people swiftly if it benefits them. It is only when it would be painful to do the right thing that people insist on their legal limitations.

The student's citizenship makes no difference legally when it comes to First Amendment privileges.

> constitutional rights

This is a false statement. The only regulation here is title VI and title IX. The administration of a public university is not legally part of the government.

> The administration of a public university is not legally part of the government.

Nope, you are wrong. There have literally been supreme court cases about free speech rights of students.

And yes, the supreme court has found that it is possible for a public school to break the 1st amendment rights of students.

国有国法家有家规

The issue is of harassment and continued education at Purdue; not constitutional rights. It sounds like the pro China students were harassing Zhihao Kong. Purdue can decide what constitute harassment. 100% it's part of of every contract the student signs and agrees to as a part of their acceptance.

Why do they need proof of being a foreign entity? Just the intimidation should get them expelled.

Because the most intimidating part is arranging a secret police visit to his parents.

Students arguing politics, even if uncivil, isn't something you want to be "no tolerance" about. There are lines though, and this is one.

Anyone who;s attended a western university has seen how ... emotional? the politcals can get. I think this is probably a good thing, so it's tough to determine when the line is crossed. It sounds like it was definitely crossed here but it's still a tough minefield to navigate.

There seems to be a large or loud group who stoke their emotions, but not their rationality .. its like the blood drains from their head when their heart gets fired up

Emotions are good, but excessive emotions without deep understanding is something very different.

Emotions are fine - sending the secret police to a parent's home - not fine and the student should be expelled.

"If those students can be identified..." It sounds from the statement that they don't know who they are at this point. This sounds to me like an initial statement before a full investigation has completed. I would also say that for the rights of other students, there should be some kind of fair process to ensure that the accused are fairly treated.

Also it’s what they would say if they wanted to look like they were taking a hard stance while having an out to avoid actually doing anything concrete or with consequences.

Only time will tell what actually is done.

The student has stated (on reddit) that he has identities and proof at ready for police and/or the university.

At the end of the day, it's a stretch to assume the students did anything other than wield their rights to free speech on an American (or other western) campus. Anti CCP activities, on campus or elsewhere in west makes it way through PRC media bubbles with of millions of eyeballs willing to do the dirty work, frequently within PRC soil. All it takes is for a post to trend. Freedom of speech in west =/= freedom from consequences, which applies even less in PRC.

What's nonsensical are the allegations that politically engaged pro-PRC/CCP Chinese national students must be state agents. And the disproportionate media attention it gets in the west whenever there's diaspora drama between PRC students and HK/Tibet etc. CCP doesn't need to instruct nationalists to behave like nationalists. Rich Chinese kids with social media are playing the same cancel culture game against the out-group and that just happens to be aligned/exploitable for PRC censorship.

>Rich Chinese kids with social media are playing the same cancel culture game against the out-group and that just happens to be aligned/exploitable for PRC censorship.

So? It's a crappy game and we should stop letting them play it. Making up accusations of being a CIA agent is not better than making up accusations of being a PLA agent.

There’s no assuming going on. These students explicitly threatened reporting him to the Chinese government, and did so using their registered accounts in online chat so we know exactly who it was.

That's called an allegation, an assumption. And alleging students said some dumb shit is different than proving collusion with PRC gov unless Purdue can dig up files from PRC MSS. In the meantime, the parsimonious answer is kids playing with PRC cancel culture, because to my knowledge there hasn't been a single proven allegation of PRC kids directly reporting other PRC nationals on western campus. Plenty of yellow journalism alleging collusion from the last few years, but zero expulsions despite China Initiative cracking down on campus harder than ever. That should tell you something. If anything I hope Kong / Purdue hits up the proper authorities and finally get some clarity on the extends of the issue other than non-stop news cycle weasel allegations. IMO the likely outcome is dumb kids trigger cancel culture drama over social media, and again free speech =/= freedom from consequences in other jurisdictions.

Two giant paragraphs that are largely irrelevant as well as inaccurate. Purdue has a framework to work with to adjudicate situations regarding the student experience. We will see how it plays out. Your emotional response to some trigger doesn't have anything to do with what is being discussed.

The students followed and threatened, that’s harassment. Even if it was legal, the campus can still expel them if it violates their standards. The campus is not bound by the first amendment, as it is not the government.

> it's a stretch to assume the students did anything other

No, because at least one (edit: two!) incidents like this has already repeatedly happened elsewhere. Chinese students sabotaged a panel at Brandeis University about Uyghurs ("Viewers interrupted a Harvard-educated lawyer as she tried to describe her brother’s plight in a concentration camp, scrawling “bullshit” and “fake news” over his face on the screen and blaring China’s national anthem." - which is pretty clearly harassment), and an Emerson College student was subjected to doxxing and death threats[2]. Given these incidents, and that the university president released a letter about this (so it's not just an unverified social media post), the reasonable assumption is that the students did engage in harassment.

Moreover, yes, students in a foreign country reporting an incident legal in that country to their repressive home government is definitely "collusion".

> Freedom of speech in west =/= freedom from consequences

Um, no, that's incorrect. "Freedom of speech" means that you have the ability to express the opinions that you want to without consequences, by definition (the two components of freedom of speech are the ability to express opinions and the protection from "consequences" (which is a misleading way to say "active retribution") of that expression).

In the United States incarnation, the First Amendment is a specific instance of a law protecting freedom of speech that prevents the federal government from punishing you from saying what you want, modulo a few edge cases (most of which aren't restrictions on freedom of speech/expression so much as restrictions on particular utterances (e.g. yelling "fire" in a crowded theater) or knowledge (disseminating classified information)).

But, beyond the government (which is the only entity that the First Amendment applies to), other organizations or individuals can take pro-free-speech or anti-free-speech positions, which (again) means freedom from consequences due to that speech.

The CCP here is clearly taking an anti-free-speech position by threatening the student through his parents due to an opinion that he has expressed about Tianamen Square.

> Rich Chinese kids with social media are playing the same cancel culture game

Also completely false. "Cancel culture" means that you're attacked by the culture specifically, which includes just about everything except the government.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/even-on-us-campuses-china...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593320

> e.g. yelling "fire" in a crowded theater

The legal argument behind that concept isn't that "yelling fire in a crowded theater" is about the particular utterance but that it was a metaphor for the government's legal ability to restrict free-speech when it presents a "clear and present danger".

The legal case where the metaphor was introduced was a unanimous decision allow charging some under the espionage act for pamphleteering against the draft in WWI. It considered among the worst Supreme Court decisions, has been partially overturned and is an odd example to reference when arguing that these "edge-cases" don't amount to real restrictions on speech. This particular "edge-case" decision upheld the criminal prosecution of anti-war activists for their speech.

Harassment on US soil, sure. That's under US perview and should be addressed by relevant US instruments. But freedom from consequences in a foreign jurisdiction? Besides being legally wrong, that's peak American exceptionalism. CCP is allowed to take anti-freespeech position on PRC soil, even triggered by incidents on foreign soil, that's PRC law (and HK NSL). They're not bound by US free speech, by design. PRC cancel culture involves flesh search and generating enough attention to warrant government action. Fixating on US definitions doesn't magically absolve the fact that there are consequences occurring on PRC soil according to PRC rules outside of US/host country purview.

He can't immediately announce punishment without violation of due process.

The perpetrators may be known, but even so that has to be formally established before the school can do anything about them.

It's unfortunate that there isn't a greater response from the student body in defense of free speech.

It seems like harassment should be enough to expell someone even before this statement.

If you can prove it was harassment and not someone just saying something the other party didn’t like in a place both parties had a right to be.

If we’re both at a bar we have a right to be at, and you keep saying you think I’m a jerk and should get kicked out - is that harassment?

If you follow me there every time I go? Probably. If you don’t, probably not.

Proving one way or another can be difficult.

Oh, I somehow misread the above comment entirely and took it to mean that these rules had to be in place before we can prosecute anyone for breaking them. Not sure how that happened

Maybe, but again a university is not bound by due process requirements. I do agree that it might be good practice to not violate them. Let’s see if Purdue does eventually act.

We are all ethically bound to abide by the principles of due process in our dealings with others, whether proscribed by law or not.

Aside from being arbitrary: Is due process a single, one-size fits all?

I thought it was a pretty good response.

From the article:

> If those students who issued the threats can be identified, they will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action.

It sounds like they don't know who the students are yet, so they can't punish anybody. Anyway, I'd rather they say "appropriate disciplinary action", because it implies they'll actually try to find out the full story, which is how I want an administration to behave.

It sounds like they are trying to have it both ways. On one hand, they need to do something. On the other hand, they can say, well we couldn’t identify the perpetrators, so oops, we tried.

>reported to the Chinese state

Chinese law requires Chinese citizens and companies to spy when asked. It's literally a law.

https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corpo...

That doesn't mean we should tolerate it happening in America.

Interesting. Does this make every Chinese citizen in the United States an agent of a foreign power? (I suspect the answer is yes)

https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/agent-of-a-foreign-power/

Only those who follow through with it.

.. so their parents don't get 'dissapeared'

A coerced agent is still an agent. But my point is that those who don't participate in such activities, despite the demands of the CCP, are not agents of the CCP.

I think part of the problem is that the "quarrel" is with the CCP itself. Students get into a political argument. Maybe it went over a line, into harassment.

The point at which it becomes beyond the pale, as Kong himself stated" was when the pro-ccp students "weaponized" the CCP/state. IE, called chinese secret police and arranged for an intimidation visit to his parents.

China has quite a few programs in place to use their students and expats for power projection. China United Front Work Department [1] tries to place PRC citizens into foreign companies in order to gather intelligence and influence them. Confucius Institutes [2] are widespread throughout American universities and use PRC international students to promote state interests.

The reality that Americans are unwilling to accept is that PRC nationals are agents of the state by default. Even if a PRC national doesn't fall into one of the above programs, they are still incentivized by China's social credit system to act in the state's interests, even while abroad.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Front_Work_Department

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute

I seems like a lot hinges on "The identities of the bullies is well known."

The President's letter says "If those students who issues the threats can be identified, they will be subject to appropriate disciplinary sanction." Have the threateners been reliably identified in, for example, press accounts? It seems very possible that in some communities on campus "everyone knows who it is" without the administration actually knowing, or being able to reliably prove, who it was.

It does at least set the stage to expel them if the behavior continues. Although it appears you are correct, this is way too little way too late.

I think this is an opportunity to raise the prominence of the issue. I wish Purdue had explicitly mentioned the Tiananmen Massacre in this notice. We should talk about it. Our diplomats should be applying pressure around Peng Shuai's status. I'd love to see a debate in Congress about our participation in the Olympics and what that says about our support of this regime.

I think it is better they didn't.

Students are not being (considered for) expelled for their views of the Tiananmen Massacre one way or another. Taking any stance on that, in this context, would muddy those waters and make Prudue look like it was doing a political purge.

The problem that produced the statement was harassment. Not political views.

Is saying the Tiananmen Massacre happened a political view?

I would think that a government machining gunning down peacefully assembled civilians and then running over the bodies with tanks, then shooting any doctors who attempted to help the wounded, wouldn't be politicized. That we can all agree it is deeply and unquestionably evil.

Yes, it would be very nice if we could all understand important things without misunderstandings based on personal biases or misinformation.

In the meantime, debating without harassing each other is the best way forward.

Something being a political view doesn't mean its not verifiable fact.

A debate has different facets - political or not political - fact or not fact - harassment or not harassment.

In this case the problem that needed to be addressed by Purdue was the harassment.

Students debating different understandings of Tiananmen Square (regardless of either sides merits) was not the issue that required intervention by university leadership.

200 Chinese students have no material financial impact in a body of 35,000 students. I'm inclined to take the statement at face value, and won't be surprised if more actions come as they work out the facts.

200 students who would be quickly replaced with 200 other students from the wait list, I might add.

At Purdue? absolutely. THis isn't some unknown regional school but a globally recognized in-dmeand uni.

Universities compete for the out-of-state and foreign students that pay their bills, they are not trivially replaceable. And if you exclude Chinese students from the replacement pool, it's even smaller.

Public universities make their tuition money on the out-of-state and foreign students, so your denominator here is an order of magnitude too big. Every marginal out-of-state or foreign student lost, is one or more in-state students whose tuition cannot be subsidized.

200 out of 3500 is still not enough to care.

Prices are discovered on the margin, I wouldn’t be so sure. I believe university administrators do care, anyhow.

Those students are meaningless to Purdue financially. They can replace those students in a heartbeat.

Please respond to my points. Prices are discovered on the margin, so losing a significant chunk of the students that pay full tuition, could certainly destabilize the market and cause challenges for university administrators.

Ok, say Purdue eats the acquisition cost to replace the 200 students. Those new students now need to be replaced by whatever school they would have otherwise attended, they have to come from somewhere. There exists some tipping point at which the system could unravel, maybe not 200 students but some number of students.

Acquisition cost is zero at this point - there are wait lists and no shortage of talented people from other countries that would love to go to Purdue or any other comparable school. They can also easily pull from the out of state basket. Also, you have to account for financial repercussions if they do nothing.

> There exists some tipping point at which the system could unravel, maybe not 200 students but some number of students.

Perhaps, but again 200 students is inconsequential to Purdue as I stated. They have the ability to replace instantly and they have a > $2.5 billion endowment.

The system would unravel due to overextension of loans and people deciding it's not worth it to take the debt on that they have been doing. That's the unravel risk. And it would hit the low tier schools anyway.

What Purdue or others with similar challenges cannot do, is nothing. Not everyone gives a shit about appeasing China. Maybe LeBron, the NBA and some other organizations care because it has been all about the $ for them. But things are changing. Women's Tennis is standing up. Biden making a statement regarding Olympics. Not many examples out there but they're becoming more frequent.

200 were enrolled this fall. The article says elsewhere that "Of the over 45,000 students enrolled at campus, 5,196 are of Asian ethnicity", though it's not clear how many of them are from China.

Keep in mind that 7.2% of the total population of the United States identifies as Asian ethnicity. There's no reason to expect that most of Purdue's Asian students are from China.

I found a Purdue pdf that states international students comprised of 20% of Purdue's student body in 2019. "China ranks first (3250) in total enrollment while India (2156) is second." Source: https://www.purdue.edu/IPPU/ISS/_Documents/EnrollmentReport/...

What is the end game in allowing PROC nationals into American universities?

Even without a kinetic confrontation, current trends indicate PROC will dominate the world economy, ocean navigation, the African and part of South American continents, near Earth orbit and the Moon because of technology they've already stolen, downloaded, misappropriated and bought from the West --and they're known to be creating bioweapons that kill only non-Chinese people while operating concentration camps that harvest organs, rape and murder millions of racial minorities!

Let's see Purdue prove they are not feckless by leveraging this to terminate Chinese investments and expel all members and family members of the CCP that refuse to surrender their Chinese citizenship, become naturalized Americans and (civilly) agree to lifelong warrantless monitoring of their loyalty to America.

"creating bioweapons that kill only non-Chinese people"? I've never heard of this before...

How would that even work? There isn’t a gene for Chinese citizenship that would impact any disease or illness.

…I’m unfortunately assuming the poster is making a bad-faith reference to COVID-19. Some conspiracy theorists have been labeling it a bio weapon and ignoring the deaths from the initial outbreak.

It's not a new concept https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_bioweapon

No, AFAICR this predates SARS-CoV-19. And it works by targeting ethnicity, not citizenship.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29632621

> How would that even work?

https://youtu.be/g1L3spfQZc4

I have.

Different ethnic groups carry different genes. You know how you sometimes see headlines like "DNA of 2,000-year-old corpse in the Himalayas analysed; he turns out to be Greek"? So apparently some ethnicities have some genes that others don't; otherwise they couldn't know that.

Make a bioweapon that targets people with genes that your ethnic group doesn't have, and you've made a bioweapon that targets only people of other ethnic groups.

The thing that the Purdue University President forgot to mention: Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, or *national origin*.

Honestly, students need to understand that if they are perpetrating this violence (yes, harassment and intimidation, whether or not it is physical, is a form of violence) they will face severe disciplinary action. Also, they need to understand that they are breaking federal law.

Unfortunately, Purdue University likely will not be taking this as seriously as possible. There are so many other public universities that have better formal administrative policies towards this kind of behavior.

Title VII applies to employers, not students.

These are good points, but this isn't a case of discrimination.

What is it about Purdue that makes them unlikely to take this seriously?

The administration can’t ban these students because they need the money from these students to keep their jobs.

This student is a grad student, so if anything, he is the exploited one here.

Purdue isn't going to go bankrupt because of 200 students.

Depending on how they handle it, they could end up blacklisted by all Chinese students - which is likely a whole lot more than 200 students.

That it could also (in an extreme case) cause many employers with Chinese ties to avoid alumni with Perdue ties to avoid backlash from China is an outcome they can’t ignore either.

CCP is not known for rational, reasoned responses in situations like this.

Unfortunately, most of those responses are very rational and reasoned. The regime has decided that intimidation is a useful tool for defending its narratives, and uses it in many contexts.

That global campaigne makes an even handed response for Purdue important, both for this context, and helping set an example for wider contexts.

We need to maintain/develop a strong and even handed culture - standing up for everyone's right of expression without harassment.

You have a good point. As hard as it is to admit, ‘overbearing insane seeming overreaction’ is a useful and rational reputation to have in certain circumstances.

It definitely cuts down on the number of sane people being willing to be seen doing whatever it is that typically causes that response.

Oh no, Americans would have more spots at an America university. Or students from another nation could take the opportunity. I don't see why we have to specifically import Chinese nationals for those 200 seats when there are plenty of qualified candidates both domestically and abroad.

Non ironically? They pay more (in most cases 10x more).

> should be only one remedy: imediate expulsion of any agent of repression of the Chinese state

There should be the same remedy that is provided to any other bully. These are still kids. There is a learning opportunity. If they refuse to learn, yes, expulsion should be in the cards.

We are not doing adults any favours by infantilising them at university. It's a big part of the problem related to contemporary college culture.

True. But very often mommy & daddy - who write the checks for college tuition - expect the college to change his (metaphorical) diapers. And never dish out serious consequences for their failure to potty train him.

And university/college is generally when they hit the wall of reality that it can’t and won’t happen any more.

Agree there is pressure, but the more admins cave, the worse it is for everyone.

"Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

This isn't some kids bullying another kid. These are adults representing a national government. This is a nation bullying someone inside the United States for exercising free speech. The message needs to be received in Beijing, not merely Indiana.

Showing them a kindness that they wouldn't receive back home might break through to them, or it might not. The situation should definitely carry gravity and have consequences for repeat offenses.

I think a bigger problem is two-fold:

1) Universities are addicted to Chinese student tuition funds, and they don't want to rock the boat. I doubt they care as much about the students themselves. My university totally half assed their program (eg. some Chinese students would have questions that went unanswered, professors tended to pay them less attention, etc.), and I felt so sorry for the students.

2) Chinese students tend to stick in groups together rather than be integrated and mixed amongst the other student populations. They're assigned the same dormitory blocks, do shopping/dining together, and they don't really get to experience America in the same way that other international students do. Not sure if this is due to design or negligence.

It is kind of interesting. At my college, we had large batches of students from (Mexican) migrant workers in our dorms. With very few exceptions the majority of two person dorms were 1:1 matching one of them with a second generation (and onwards) citizen. I thought it was a great way to expose all of us to both integration and diversity. It wasn't smooth for everyone of course, yet I thought it was a good balance of culturally jarring experiences, while still providing close proximity to people from the same background (e.g. several migrant worker kids in same hall still). I haven't really thought much about that since College but kind of assumed most places did something similar. (We also had specific classes that highlighted migrant worker issues / history).

> adults representing a national government

Legally adults, perhaps, but I think we have a social consensus that most college students are kids. Their brains haven't fully developed. If they're coming out of a brainwashed environment, they may never have been explicitly told that this is wrong; they deserve a second chance.

> message needs to be received in Beijing, not merely Indiana

I agree. My vote would be for a new foreign-student visa ban on the children of CCP members until Beijing commits to quit being petulant. But hit Beijing, the people commanding spooks to harass the parents of a student in a different country telling historical stories that scare them.

>Legally adults, perhaps, but I think we have a social consensus that most college students are kids.

US universities are famously litigious and take a hard line stance when it suits them. See Aaron Swartz. So, I don't buy the 'they are still kids' line. That is, I don't condone it, but I don't agree that universities are motivated by this sort of reasoning.

> US universities are famously litigious and take a hard line stance when it suits them. See Aaron Swartz.

MIT was not a party to the lawsuit against Aaron Swartz, nor was even JSTOR. It was brought entirely by the US Attorney for Massachusetts.

They claim that after the fact, after the bad press, I believe neither JSTOR or MIT

You don't have to believe them. You can look at the court records yourself, or any number of public case summaries[1].

To quote:

> Opting not to pursue a civil lawsuit against him, JSTOR reached a settlement with him in the summer of 2011 in which Swartz turned over the downloaded data to them. It was never released to the public. Neither did MIT take any civil action against him.

The lawsuit was a purely Justice initiative.

[1]: https://fija.org/library-and-resources/library/law-and-legal...

> You can look at the court records yourself

The problem with referring to the official record is that one misses what isn't in the official record.

> social consensus that most college students are kids. Their brains haven't fully developed

If they are mature enough for the Chinese government to shoot them in the head for peaceful protesting, then they are mature enough to understand that some democratic cultures have strong objections against the CCP and those who do their bidding.

It's one of those things where the real world is too dangerous to allow kids to be kids: you must tell 5 year olds that magic capes can't help them fly, and that they should run away from strange men who wish to touch their peepee, even if, for an ideally happy childhood, you shouldn't have to.

> Legally adults, perhaps, but I think we have a social consensus that most college students are kids. Their brains haven't fully developed. If they're coming out of a brainwashed environment, they may never have been explicitly told that this is wrong; they deserve a second chance.

I really don't think we do have such a consensus. The post-high school (for those who graduated) 18-year-olds from my old neighborhood who committed offenses didn't get this consideration. They went to jail. Knowing their home lives growing up, it was no surprise to anyone that they committed the offenses they committed. It's difficult to see how they could have done otherwise. They weren't explicitly brainwashed, but they grew up in an environment that warped their world view as thoroughly as any Chinese propaganda could have done.

In the United States, we've also tried children as young as 11 years old as adults.

I think there is a social consensus to give college students a pass.

There is no such social consensus. People act according to expectations. If we expect college students to act like adults then they will. I certainly didn't feel like a kid when I was in college.

It's bizarre how some societies have lowered their expectations of young people over the past couple centuries. When Horatio Nelson was that age he was captain of a warship, leading hundreds of men in combat and doing a pretty fine job of it.

They're old enough to be in the army, so they're old enough to be kicked out of the country for spying.

Yes. One has to wonder just how many of these students are students, and not "students" — at Purdue & everywhere else.

University students are emphatically not kids. The students who are US citizens are legal adults expected to vote an participate in democracy. At what age do you expect them to suddenly "grow up" and be responsible for their actions?

Once they are nominated for the Supreme Court or elected to federal office. Everything else is youthful indiscretions

Being a functional adult takes practice. Nobody "grows up" until they've been responsible for their own actions for several years. Highschools (and to a lesser degree, parents) have largely passed the buck on this one.

If it were up to me people would get voting rights a few years after they get treated like an adult in all other capacities, I don't care if you move one up or move the other back.

Universities should treat students like adults but these people have no practice being adults so it's gonna be messy.

The day we let them drink.

These are not highschool kids; they are legal adults choosing to enforce an oppressive policy from a foreign government. There's every reason to expel them.

There is increasing evidence over the last 2 years that low-consequence "intervention" doesn't really deter future bad behavior. Perhaps there are some specific actions that would have a greater success rate, but a slap on the wrist and a "don't do that again" isn't going to cut it.

I completely agree that slaps on the wrist do no suffice. Expel all 200 and ban Chinese students for five years. Anything less will accomplish nothing.

If you were to read the propublica article, you would not blow this off as the actions of "kids".

https://www.propublica.org/article/even-on-us-campuses-china...

> In a rush of adrenaline last year, the graduate student posted an open letter on a dissident website praising the heroism of the students killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

> The blowback, he said, was fast and frightening. His parents called from China, crying. Officers of the Ministry of State Security, the feared civilian spy agency, had warned them about his activism in the United States.

> for commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen Masacre

You realize the 89' protestors were trying to overthrow the government (thats how you establish the Democracy). No surprise that celebrating failed-revolutionaries is contentious.

I contend that those seeking to overthrow tyrannies are to be celebrated.

Sounds good until you try to figure out how to classify tyrannies.

The ones that block freedom of the press, block and censore the internet, deploy military force against civilians, anex peaceful territories by force, push other democracies to overwrite their history, and commit genocide... So the Chinese government.

And those are all things the US, the UK and most western government's have done & will do again.

Nobody is going to show up at your home for saying so. Many US citizens will agree with you.

A country which improves its behavior through self-criticism from its citizens is not a tyranny. It is just a government that makes serious mistakes.

No form of government has managed to avoid that yet.

Democracy and freedom don't guarantee the majority will behave well all the time. But they systematically leave the door open for improvement - even if it takes a lot of effort.

Do starving its own people and persecuting anyone who talks, thinks out loud, researches, or investigates it, work for you? The Great Leap Forward and the "Three-year Natural Disaster!" There was nothing natural about it and we still don't know how many perished.

They aren't doing it right now.

China, on the other hand, just bashed Hong Kong liberties, and to my horror, media already forgot about that.

And when you get to name a country that doesn't respect human rights, that still doesn't justify you to do the same

> the US, the UK and most western government's

Ahh, the classic whataboutism prevalent in threads about China. No excuse, especially because almost all the bad stuff that those governments did are decades in the past, whereas China is doing those things now, accelerating them, and being defended by its citizens (and people like you).

Moreover, you can't just lump together governments like that? The UK is a completely different world than the US - for instance, their freedom-of-speech laws aren't comparable to ours.

And, if we're talking just about the US (which is the topic of discussion, not the UK) - the US does not "block freedom of the press, block and censor the internet, [...] push other democracies to overwrite their history, and commit genocide..." and the other things that we have (shamefully) committed are an order of magnitude not as bad as what China is doing now. The last time the US did something remotely similar to the million+ Uyghurs in concentration camps was the Trail of Tears in 1850 (which, as terrible as it was, involved less than a 10th of the number of victims as Xinjiang now).

You're sure making a lot of fallacies and bad arguments to try to excuse the behavior of a murderous, tyrannical government...

One hint is that they don't let you call them "tyranny"

States that compel their citizens to harass others for having the temerity to mention acts of tyranny by said states, even abroad, perhaps...?

They were run over by tanks, and the PRC has made it illegal to even mention the event. Most nation states allow citizens to talk about their own history good and bad.

Run over by tanks doesn't quite cover the brutality of that night. The tanks repeatedly drove over and then reversed over the same bodies until they were pulp on the streets. What happened that night was ni unspeakable, yet we must speak of it or we risk it being forgotten in history.

Turned into a pulp and washed away with hoes down the sewers

Could you give me a source for "Run over and the reversed". I'd be interested in reading about it.

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