Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses? | Hacker News Reader

Have Chinese spies infiltrated American campuses?

newyorker.com

55 pointsalanwong24 comments

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?

There have been incidents with Japanese corporations stealing IP:

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/23/business/japanese-executi...

So your argument is that other foreign nationals have been unfairly accused in the past so we shouldn't worry about it happening? Or, is it that other nations, as they developed, spied and stole technology until they didn't need to anymore?

Either way I don't see why we should ignore technology theft.

The US did it too, until they became top dog. I can't get worked up about it. It's just the way of things.

How many years is a long history? How many years ago the world is under western colonization? To keep the wealth robbed around the world, "legal" is the term they use quite often.

If a developing country needs development, they have to steal something, because it won't be given. As a developing country develop, it will in turn protect its interests. By then it will try to protect its properties (intellectual or whatever it is). I wish most developing countries learn from China, develop quickly, then worry about the legality issue.

Whatabboutism is pretty silly here. When was China a US colony? If it's ok for China to steal IP from the US, then why was it wrong for "western" countries in the past to steal from others? If it was wrong for others in the past then why is it justified now? It's either never or always ok. I vote for never myself. But if you think "revenge" stealing is justified against a country that never colonized them, then you are justifying all countries doing it since the beginning of time, because just about every country in the world was conquered and exploited at one time or another.

China is still stealing IP and has been for over 20 years. It's nothing new.

It is not what about, it is the way a developing country should follow in order to climb up the ladder game. I wish more developing countries can be smart and do not let others take advantages of them so easily.

If you give China enough time, it will lead the effort to protect IP to block other competitors.

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.

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

"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.

> “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

Of course there is a long term perspective of the battle. However, the short term battle also matters. The authoritarian CCP government has being winning the short term battle and this helps them becoming a new superpower, and this is defining the history of the next couple decades.

Jailing a bunch of Chinese researchers, and then later dropping charges, is not helping us on that front

If the government wants to prosecute spies and traitors, they shouldn’t cast a wide net and bring in a bunch of innocents too. We’re not supposed to be the side that jails academics on made up charges.

Regardless of the proportions between truth and exaggeration in this article - today's political climate is becoming like a playground for psychopaths that are willing to push the xenophobia-buttons of the crowd in service of their own purposes.

Articles like these make me formulate various escape plans in my head, even though I'm not Asian. I'm not part of the majority group where I live. What if one day my ethnicity becomes targeted by other people's arrangements of bad reputation? How will I start a new life?

Most likely, but the explicitly racist China Initiative did a terrible job of catching them, because I surmise the goal was to disrupt legitimate Sino-US education links in general, which in some people's estimation is more significant than catching some spies. Can't really stop PRC from hacking institutional DBs from across the ocean, or transmitting knowledge back via 1000s of research interns, but can certainly dissuade leading educators from participating in PRC thousand talent exchange programs.

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