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

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-03/trump-s-next-trade-war-target-chinese-students-at-elite-schools

186 252 7 years ago

b_tterc_p• 7 years ago

It would be nice if we could add some human rights issues to Trump’s list of grievances. I feel like coverage of what’s going on would feel entirely different if part of it was saying “stop running concentration camps”

Edit: curious why the downvotes

war10252• 7 years ago

At least to me, your comment reads like you wish Trump would act more like Hitler so you could feel more justified in not liking him.

Edit: See reply below. I realize now that this was me misinterpreting the parent's words.

WillPostForFood• 7 years ago

Caring more about human rights abuses is to "act more like Hitler" Sheesh..

hurrdurr22• 7 years ago

I'm going to venture a guess as perhaps there's some hypocrisy on the US being the moral authority on human rights... yes I realize that we don't currently run concentration camps, but we did not that long ago (see Japanese internment camps), or the more recent black sites where prisoners are tortured... or funding friendly dictators with death squads... etc.

ajxs• 7 years ago

I'm definitely a critic of China's awful stance on human rights, but would Trump taking a stance against China's despotic government on humanitarian grounds seem the least bit credible when that seems to be the de-facto justification du jour for foreign regime change? Assad barrel bombs, Iran nuclear this that, Gaddafi something something... I've long since stopped giving the ( unilateral ) American government the benefit of doubt when they complain about other counties' treatment of their citizens. At least this time they're being remotely honest.

itsaidpens• 7 years ago

This is probably warranted.

JumpCrisscross3• 7 years ago

I disagree with you, but am curious about your argument. Wouldn’t this cut off the brain drain that’s contributed to decades of American technological supremacy and economic growth?

derp_dee_derp• 7 years ago

No.

Are you trying to credit Chinese students as the sole reason for America's technological supremacy and economic growth? Ha ha good try but no.

Besides, India isn't affected by this and they make up equal share of foreign students in American Universities.

Plus, you know, western European students, African students, Russian, etc, have also contributed over the decades.

China isn't everything.

warmcat3• 7 years ago

"In April, three researchers were also let go by the University of Texas’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in connection with an investigation into possible foreign attempts to take advantage of its federally funded research." This is the real reason why visas are getting denied. Why would you want to enjoy the fruits of living and working in America but benefit other countries (even if you once belonged there)?

macintux• 7 years ago

I must admit to some confusion about why federally-funded cancer research results aren’t available to everyone.

warmcat3• 7 years ago

Imagine getting funding in USA for research and sending the research and results back to China so they can patent it before. Who benefits then?

hello_1234• 7 years ago

It will only be available to everyone after it's patented and sold to a big pharma. All made possible by the great Bayh–Dole Act - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act

caminante• 7 years ago

The issue isn't collaboration or information-sharing.

The researchers didn't disclose affiliations and violated non-disclosures. Those are pure ethics violations (and conflicts of interest) that undermine research integrity. If they're willing to lie there, what else are they willing to lie about?

Quote from another article:

The reports say that the researchers failed to disclose international collaborators and that at least one confidential grant application was sent to a scientist in China in violation of federal policy, among other allegations. [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/health/md-anderson-chines...

AFascistWorld• 7 years ago

They are listed as paid full-time researchers in Chinese institutions. But xenophobia!

nneonneo4• 7 years ago

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 getting slower, which will impact a lot of students.

The US already lost out on multiple academic generations of bright Iranian students and scientists thanks to their restrictive visa policies. If they further hamstring themselves by excluding Chinese students, the decline of American science will accelerate dramatically. Already, science budgets are continually slashed and grants are harder to find. Slowing the pace of scientific development is a short-sighted move that will likely not be felt in full for decades, but it will definitely be felt.

Science exists outside of the USA - now is as good a time as any to consider research in places like Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea, and yes, even China. Language doesn’t need to be a barrier - increasingly, many prolific institutions are conducting much of their work in English.

ekianjo5• 7 years ago

. 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...

tntn2• 7 years ago

60-80% of graduate students in STEM fields in the U.S. are international students. It seems like having 60-80% fewer graduates would accelerate the decline of American science.

henrikschroder2• 7 years ago

The US has a massive advantage in science (and business) in that many of the best and brightest from across the world want to come to the US, despite the hurdles and issues of getting student visas or work visas.

This means that as a country you don't have to pay for the primary and secondary schooling of all these people, but you get to reap the rewards of them working in your country and contributing to your scientific lead, to your economy.

But like all advantages, if you don't pay attention, you can squander it. You can make it easy for smart Chinese students (in this instance) to do science in the US and benefit US academia and businesses, or you can make it hard, and the same people will instead benefit some other economy.

It's not about diversity, it's about not realizing that the free firehose of cheap and willing smarts and labour isn't perpetual, that it actually has to be maintained and encouraged.

ojbyrne2• 7 years ago

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...

rgbrenner• 7 years ago

Already, science budgets are continually slashed and grants are harder to find.

The first point is false. R&D spending is at a record high: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44307.pdf Government's share of funding has fallen below 50%, but only because business r&d spending has increased so much. Federal R&D budgets are increasing: https://cen.acs.org/policy/research-funding/US-science-fundi...

If the 2nd part is true, it's only because the amount of proposals is growing faster than the funding.

PeterStuer• 7 years ago

Have the definitions/concepts of research in its various forms kept constant in these figures? I know that at least in Europe those have drifted considerable under the influence of industry lobbying to expand more and more into the higher regions of the Technology Readiness Levels [1] model that formerly were definitely not included under the 'R&D' umbrella.

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

nneonneo4• 7 years ago

US R&D spending as a whole is up, but a lion's share of that (per your first link) is "development" ($314.5bn of $495.1bn). Academic environments, which are the ones affected by student visa policies and such, primarily engage in basic and applied research (not development), and are largely funded by the national government. Industry grants exist and can be real boons for researchers, but often come with strings attached and are often disproportionately targeted towards certain sectors.

National funding for academic research, unfortunately, has been flat (or falling) over the last several years, and has repeatedly been targeted for cuts by the President (luckily reined in by Congress). For example, see the NSF's funding survey: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/assets/968/figu...

unityByFreedom• 7 years ago

yes, even China

Just going to leave this here [1]. That's at Peking University, top school in the country. Sure, if you're a foreigner, you'll probably be left alone, but your classmates are not allowed to be themselves, and that's part of your learning environment.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/if-i-disap...

jorblumesea• 7 years ago

At the same time, there are a fair amount of public examples of Chinese academics taking US research budgets and running with the results. Or intelligence agents posing as students and swiping everything from university systems. The Confucius Institutes seem similarly nefarious.

There needs to be a balance. Cutting out every Chinese academic is absurd and xenophobic, but more scrutiny is needed.

This issue isn't black and white; a more nuanced approach is required. To pretend that there isn't some merit to some of these ideas is just as absurd as saying that every academic is a spy.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/29/fbi-director-...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/education-or-espionage-ch...

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3007903/chi...

point78• 7 years ago

Don't the majority of foreign PhD students return to their home countries when complete anyway?

fragmede• 7 years ago

Yes - but not entirely by choice. Many a PhD student has returned home after earning their degree, because of the US's visa policies, which make it hard to stay after completing a degree. Why would they stay somewhere that doesn't want them?

the_svd_doctor4• 7 years ago

Many do because they can't stay.

the_svd_doctor4• 7 years ago

Your first point is incorrect.

First a student asks for an F-1 (sometimes J-1) visa. This can be delivered for a single entry (typical for Iranian students for instance), or for 1 or like 5 years (the common case for international students). The visa lets you _enter_ the country.

Once admitted in the US, a student can remain indefinitely while maintaining its student status (including school transfers). This applies to Chinese students as well. There is no renewal and if you only go to school or transfer school, nothing can really happen. There's nothing to renew every year.

The issue that arises is when a student leaves the US with an expired VISA. Then he has to apply for a new one before coming back. This is where it can get complicated. I have a student/friend who go stuck 4 months (in China) waiting to renew his VISA.

ETHisso20173• 7 years ago

So once a student has been on a F-1 visa for more than a year, they face a risk of being barred from re-entering the US if they choose to visit their families?

nneonneo4• 7 years ago

This also bars people from leaving the country to attend conferences (an essential part of many grad students’ training), visit family or just travel - all things that many students need to do regularly. Having an expired visa is very much not a situation you want to be in.

StreamBright2• 7 years ago

>> The visa lets you _enter_ the country.

No, the VISA gives you an opportunity to talk to border control and not to deny entry immediately. They decide if they let you in or not.

For the uninformed downvoter crew:

"Entering the U.S. on an employment visa may be described as a three-step process in most cases.[5] First, the employer files an application with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services requesting a particular type of category visa for a specific individual.[5] If the employer's application is approved, it only authorizes the individual to apply for a visa; the approved application is not actually a visa.[5] The individual then applies for a visa and is usually interviewed at a U.S. embassy or consulate in the native country.[5] If the embassy or consulate gives the visa, the individual is then allowed to travel to the U.S.[5] At the border crossing, airport, or other point of entry into the U.S.,

>>>>> the individual speaks with an officer from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to ask for admission to the U.S.[5] If approved, the individual may then enter the U.S.[5] <<<<<<<"

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

addicted3• 7 years ago

If you overstay the length of your Visa you also run the risk of being eliminated from any future Visa considerations,whether for work, study or tourism.

rchaud4• 7 years ago

Is the F-1 5 years these days? In my day (~10 years ago) it was 4 years plus a 12 months work permit. If you had a paid summer internship inside of the 4 years, those months worked got deducted from your post-graduation work permit. I had 2 summer internships and a little less than 6 months on my work permit when I graduated.

briandear• 7 years ago

Was American science declining in the 1960s when almost no Chinese students were in American universities? Could there also be extremely smart people in Africa that might now find a place in American universities? Are there Americans that might now find a place in American Universities? I am not saying anything about visa policies, but suggesting that limiting Chinese students will hurt American science is a pretty narrow view. There is also a counter argument that many bright Chinese students go back to China, thus strengthening China. There is also another view that some Chinese students are working for or carrying the water for Beijing’s government. Students in China can’t just decide to go to the US, they have to be approved by the Chinese government and there is no doubt that such approvals require allegiance to the CCP and and some willingness to help the CCP when asked. Attributing nothing but good intentions for the 350,000 Chinese students admitted to the US each year is naïve.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/chines...

nneonneo4• 7 years ago

there is no doubt that such approvals require allegiance to the CCP and and some willingness to help the CCP when asked.

No, they really don’t. Where’s your source for this? You make it sound like we’re just admitting 350,000 spies into the States each year.

However, it is true that if you make these folks feel thoroughly unwelcome, they will want to just go home and help out - and that’s exactly what you’ll do by (a) being baselessly suspicious of them and (b) being harsh when they try to stay for studies or immigrate.

lambdasquirrel• 7 years ago

American science was doing “well” in the 60’s because Europe was still recovering.

Today, the US “competes” (to some extent) with Europe for the best and brightest.

michaelscott• 7 years ago

The world today is very different from the 1960s, particularly regarding both the US and China. I have absolutely no doubt that there are unbelievably intelligent people in Africa now, just as there were (and of course are) in China and everywhere else where people exist.

The lack of infrastructure, support and adequate living conditions is all that severely limits them from reaching their potential and they know this, which is why they climb the Everest of bureaucratic hurdles to get to a place like the US. China is a unique case because it has become wealthy (enough) very quickly and critically also has a very large population, which statistically increases the chances of very intelligent people appearing given the right conditions; if 1% of a billion population is very intelligent that's 10 million people in real terms.

I don't think the US has the dominance it did in science like it did in the 60s, when Europe and Japan were still recovering from war and China was still poor. I think the loss of a large number of Chinese students would certainly have an affect on the US's development in science today.

nl3• 7 years ago

Students in China can’t just decide to go to the US, they have to be approved by the Chinese government and there is no doubt that such approvals require allegiance to the CCP and and some willingness to help the CCP when asked.

What on earth are you talking about? I mean they have to get a passport, true. This takes about 10 days, but has no special requirements.

But that's the same situation as in the US, where school students literally recite the pledge of allegiance.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_passport#Fee_and_proce...

DiogenesKynikos6• 7 years ago

I like what Tom Lehrer had to say about this:

"What's going to get us to the Moon? Good old American know-how, provided by good old Americans like Herr Doktor Werner von Braun."

StreamBright2• 7 years ago

This is exactly the reason I do not live in the US. Not only the VISA renewal is a big hurdle, sometimes totally randomly they deny you application. Adding the unconstitunal practices at the border where I need to reveal private content and trade secrets to the border control people and you are making sure that many of us are going to work or doing PHD somewhere else. For bonus points, it is not possible to save your details in the gov database so you need to re-enter all the 10 pages of information by hand every time you apply for a VISA. That is right, you need to keep re-entering the same information over and over, again and again.

Tsubasachan2• 7 years ago

Its fascinating how America is slowly turning into a country that simply doesn't want foreigners. Sadly I like New York so I have to diligently go through the mountain of paperwork. How many people from the EU overstay or cause problems for the police?!

inflatableDodo9• 7 years ago

Brits overstay and work in the US without the correct paperwork all the time. They don't seem to get noticed by the police for some reason.

cltsang3• 7 years ago

How did you get that impression? From what the article says America is only getting more conscious about foreigners from China, not foreigners in general. They are quite different.

This is hardly a surprising move considering the recent realization that the Chinese government has been pushing propaganda against American values like freedom, democracy, and basic human rights, on American soil. One notable example is confucius institutes [0].

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2019/01/1...

tjeannin• 7 years ago

"Europe is home to 1.64 million researchers, while the US number approaches 1.47 million. ... Europe produced 33.4% of the world's research outputs, while the US accounted for 23.4%."

The US is not really leading the way. It's a bit strange to "consider" Europe as a potential good place for research, it's already way ahead the US.

theklub• 7 years ago

Europe's population is double what the US is...

ovi256• 7 years ago

That's hardly far ahead, barely 11% more than the US. The opposite is true on means, budget and research infrastructure, where the US leads, both in aggregate and per capita, and by much more than 11%.

youeeeeeediot• 7 years ago

Elite universities have been more than complicit in this as well, especially when they can charge such a premium on "international student" tuition. It is also why they so often look the other way when those students bring their cultural values on things like cheating with them. No one dares admit it for fear of being labeled racist or xenophobic.

flukus4• 7 years ago

Can't speak for the US but this is certainly the case in Australian Universities, I've had interns that don't speak enough English to order a hamburger yet somehow got masters degrees. Cheating is rampant and the Universities will look the other way, even threaten teachers that fail students. The industry has the legitimacy of a pyramid scheme and deserves to be shut down.

While they're here many students will also work more than the allowed 25 hours a week (meant for industry experience not ubereats) and for below minimum wage, which has a huge affect on the job market for younger people.

alexmlamb• 7 years ago

Just to be clear, this doesn't necessarily mean that the students got the degree through fraud or low standards.

Speaking and listening can be harder than reading and writing, so the students might be doing good work even if their spoken language isn't very good. Also in technical subjects you might not need to know the language well to pass the tests and do the homeworks.

As an example, I have an Msc from a French language university, but I can't really understand the language.

msie4• 7 years ago

"when those students bring their cultural values on things like cheating with them" - geez, I wonder why international students find it hard to assimilate.

zaroth7• 7 years ago

In 2013, the number of Chinese students returning to China after graduating hit 90%. [1]

It used to be more like 9 in 10 would remain in the US to work.

If foreign graduate students are staying and working in the US, it’s probably a net benefit hosting them in US schools, even though it drives up demand and therefore tuition costs for US citizens.

If 8 or 9 out of 10 are returning to China, better to keep the spot for someone who will work in the US.

Now it’s probably government policy that’s the main driver for so many Chinese foreign exchange students to return to China (both US and China policies align in this sense), but it’s not like Trump is going to open up work visas for graduating Chinese students, so in that reality it makes sense to tighten the student visa issuance to account.

With 360,000 Chinese foreign exchange students, and I’m willing to bet that’s disproportionately private universities (5 million total enrollment) rather than public. I wonder what the elasticity of demand is for college these days, and how much of a tuition price drop that could entail?

Unfortunately my personal experience is there is very little integration on campus between foreign exchange and domestic populations, which precludes even the cultural benefit. Colleges claim they cultivate a rich/diverse environment but in reality the students largely exist within their own circle. It may be different at the graduate level, where ~25% of enrollment is foreign. I recall a NYT article last year about it, but I can’t find it presently.

[1] https://qz.com/1342525/chinese-students-increasingly-return-...

JumpCrisscross3• 7 years ago

Do we know the fraction who were given a long-term visa but returned anyway? Trying to disentangle the difficulty of graduates getting visas from graduates who are just coming here to go home afterwards.

RavlaAlvar2• 7 years ago

I think people has to recognise there are two class of student; children from bourgeois class that mainly come to US just for their Bachelor, most of them don’t stay in the US afterward; Postgraduate student from the newly formed middle class in China that, if given chance, mostly won’t return to China.

seanmcdirmid2• 7 years ago

The reason more Chinese students returned was because the number of Chinese going to the USA to study exploded. It is really hard for those liberal arts fuerdai to find a job in the states after they graduate.

RavlaAlvar2• 7 years ago

Chinese student and liberal art subject??

majia• 7 years ago

Most students returned to China because they are not allowed to work in the US. The chance of getting a work visa dropped significantly since 2010s.

Foreign students aren’t getting American education for free; they pay much higher tuition. They are effectively subsiding the tuition cost of domestic students.

zaroth7• 7 years ago

I know the international tuition is much higher. But economics dictate the university cannot increase prices when it finds itself with empty slots they need to fill.

Universities will take a large financial hit, but tuition should also decline in the face of lower demand.

educationdata2• 7 years ago

Not really. Most Chinese PhD students have full assistantship.

Most Chinese undergraduate students won't be able to get job in the US anyway.

Your second and first paragraphs are talking about different things.

paulgb2• 7 years ago

I find this line of thinking so odd, because nobody ever says “exporting American {cars/corn/computers} to China drives up demand and costs to US citizens.” The worst-case scenario here is that education is economically just equivalent to an export, but that’s still a pretty great scenario! Especially since it’s an export that doesn’t pollute, supports high-paying labor, perpetuates the global premium associated with a US education, and has the side effect that sometimes foreign students do stay and continue to contribute to the economy.

threezero• 7 years ago

Well, except there’s a finite amount of educational slots, and so fewer people who would keep that education and knowledge in the US are able to get in.

zaroth7• 7 years ago

But it’s not anything like exporting a consumable product.

It’s exporting expertise which is used to outcompete the US and eliminates US jobs and challenges profitability of US companies.

It’s obviously not without benefits in terms of establishing clout of US universities (and maybe even keeping many of those programs running) and for the people that do stay those are bright and productive immigrants which are going to go on to create value and jobs in the US economy.

The problem is when almost all of the students aren’t remaining to work in the US and the ones that do, you worry if they aren’t involved in some form of espionage for the Motherland.

octorian• 7 years ago

It may be different at the graduate level, where ~25% of enrollment is foreign.

Only 25%? If you look at science and engineering graduate programs, its probably closer to 90%. Or its certainly felt like that around every department I've seen.

zaroth7• 7 years ago

You’re right, it’s overwhelmingly foreign students in STEM. I guess non-STEM balances it out?

msie4• 7 years ago

Who could blame them? The US is an inhospitable place for immigrants. People won't give them a chance to assimilate. They'll be suspicious of them from the start (like some of the comments here), they give them a hard-time if they don't assimilate right away and won't go half-way to be friends with them.

bitreality2• 7 years ago

Compared to where? China? India? I think immigrants assimilate just fine into the United States. Assimilation is not easy anywhere. The United States isn't perfect, but plenty of immigrants are living great lives.

chmod7752• 7 years ago

What do you recommend the EU should do with all the US students that come here to study for basically free, because they can't afford it back home?

We have like 5000 Americans studying in Germany alone. Do you think we should send them back home because they're not gonna work here anyways?

Do you not believe someone should give those young people an education just because they deserve a chance in life?

Can we not do things on principle sometimes instead of having to justify everything with economics?

zaroth7• 7 years ago

Don’t non-EU students have to pay tuition fees? If not, they certainly should.

No I don’t think an expensive university education is a “right” that these young people should be given for a chance in life.

There are copious cheap public options for someone who is looking to build a marketable skill, and I think those options are already highly subsidized.

But more to the point, I don’t think hosting 350k Chinese foreign students in US universities where 90% of them will return to China to compete against American companies and American jobs is something that the US should be doing on principle.

gojomo2• 7 years ago

This tactic could sorta make sense – if narrowly directed at "princelings" who are children of top officials, rather than top students we'd love to have stay in the US. (I don't have much hope clumsy trade/immigration bureaucracies & grandstanding politicians can be that subtle, though.)

hurrdurr22• 7 years ago

All this anti-China activity almost reminds me of the "yellow peril" at the turn of the last century...

wavefunction• 7 years ago

I would agree except that it's one hundred years later and there are Uighur re-education camps and social credit scores and new islands in the South China Sea with missile platforms and statements about reconquering Taiwan and... well.

gojomo2• 7 years ago

There's enough mutual affinity, interchange, & commerce that this current political/trade spat hasn't had much of a racial character, in its rhetoric or reasoning, as far as I've seen.

hourislate• 7 years ago

There is the story which isn't new that China is using some students as spies. A long game where students end up staying in the USA after graduating and getting jobs in Industries where they pass information back to HQ/China.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/25/china-uses-...

A senior U.S. counterintelligence official recently said publicly what many officials and experts have been warning privately for years: China is using its large student population in the United States to spy.

analog31• 7 years ago

I was a grad student when the Tienanmen Square demonstrations happened. Chinese students in the US formed the backbone of a network that maintained communication with their compatriots in China.

I personally think that welcoming international students and treating them with goodwill is good foreign policy.

_bxg1• 7 years ago

Agreed. Hopefully this move really is limited to those "with ties to Beijing", and not simply all Chinese people.

educationdata2• 7 years ago

Yes. At that time many Chinese students got green card by taking advantage of the 1989-6-4 (Today is a special day) massacre. There is a special term for those kind of green cards: blood cards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Student_Protection_Act...

It turns out, after a decade, most of those blood card scholars have no problem to work for the communist party government at all, as long as they can get paid.

Gatsky2• 7 years ago

In Australia, all Chinese students were allowed to stay if they so wished after Tiananmen, the Prime Minister at the time made it happen. I think that was a proud moment for Australia. Times have changed, immigration is now a particularly obscene political tool, as is climate change.

flukus4• 7 years ago

And now the Australian University industry is nothing more than a scam that will print degrees for the highest bidders.

tomohawk• 7 years ago

It's a wonderful theory, but here are some counterexamples off the top of my head:

Yamamoto: studied extensively in the US but led the charge to attack the US in WWII. Thought we'd be a pushover.

Matsuoko: contemporary of Yamamoto who became Foreign Secretary and similarly though attacking the US was a good idea

Qutb: his time in the US convinced him that the US was evil - he created the philosophical basis for modern islamic terrorism and the Muslim Brotherhood

The CCP (chinese communist party) is conducting extensive influence operations in our universities today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/chin...

killjoywashere2• 7 years ago

I don't know about the rest, but with regard to Yamamoto, let's quote the man: "In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/isoroku_yamamoto_224335

hyperbovine2• 7 years ago

I agree with you in principle... anything that potentially averts a WWIII, I’m willing to try. In practice though I see almost no integration between US and Chinese students (at the undergrad level anyways) on campuses. At most institutions there is a huge community of Chinese students, enough that there does not seem to be a need to go beyond it in order to have a social life. A lot of the students I interact with, even after 3-4 years living in the US, still speak almost no English, for example. I confess to being at a loss, at times, as to what the point of hosting so many undergrads from China really is. (Other than making a lot of money for the university.)

hedora• 7 years ago

After university, many foreign students stay in the US.

Majority US-born teams are vanishingly rare at all of the tech companies I’ve encountered, and that includes some of the biggest companies to early phase startups.

I can’t imagine Silicon Valley continuing to function without a constant influx of foreign talent.

Tsubasachan2• 7 years ago

University isn't just a place for learning its a place for networking. Having international students is not just good its economic necessity.

jaggednad• 7 years ago

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 them is so stupid that it’s almost unimaginable

Salgat• 7 years ago

You're absolutely right. China is desperately fighting brain drain and here we are giving them a helping hand.

jtanderson• 7 years ago

Almost makes me wonder if it's deliberate, as in some quid pro quo agreed upon, implied, or otherwise, between the US and Chinese presidents. Though what the US gets out of it is unclear, I wouldn't be shocked.

potatofarmer45• 7 years ago

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?

ajmurmann• 7 years ago

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.

ta1234567890• 7 years ago

As someone who went to the number one school in a 3rd world country and one the top universities in the US, I'd say those people would be of the same or better technical or academic caliber. Although they will most definitely not have the same connections or opportunities afterwards (which is where the most value at elite schools is).

ulfw2• 7 years ago

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.

j7ake• 7 years ago

It's harder to get into the top university in China than at MIT and Harvard. To think otherwise suggests a myopic view of the world.

Corollary: it's more prestigious to have done your bachelor's education at Tsinghua University than at MIT or Harvard. The top students in China do their Bachelor's degree in China. The ones who don't get into the top universities and have money are sent overseas.

beebmam2• 7 years ago

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.

Barrin92• 7 years ago

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.

hyperbovine2• 7 years ago

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.

ulfw2• 7 years ago

Neither is there an American one.

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

markchen90• 7 years ago

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

inflatableDodo9• 7 years ago

There is no such thing as modern Chinese meritocracy.

Is closer to then original coinage than you might think. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/792606.The_Rise_of_the_M...

lsc• 7 years ago

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.

I've been in programming and systems administration my whole working life, and I've been working in departments that are about half foreign born for most of that time. It's always a kinda weird cultural clash at first, as I look and sound, uh, a little bit midwestern; I've never left the country, and I have zero formal education and come from a family I'd call middle class (outside the bay area middle class) And then you get these very cosmopolitan foreign born people who almost always have advanced degrees working alongside me.

My impression is pretty different from yours. My impression is that, yeah, a lot of these people were raised rich and powerful by the standards of where they came from, and many have the social defects you see in Americans who had serving staff as children. But... generally speaking? they meet or exceed the same technical standards everyone else does for the job. I mean, interviewing is hard, and sometimes they get one that isn't any good, but that's true of all people of all national origins. interviewing is hard, and you make mistakes in both directions, and have to correct later.

Now, I didn't go to school; I don't know if those that aren't any good get failed out in school, or if they don't pass the interview... but I will stand by my statement that if you put in the effort to understand the accents, these foreign students aren't worse than US born candidates. And even if we're just talking about communication, foreign born people I've worked with who were educated at US schools all wrote better than the average US-born person in the same role. I assume that was something the US schools either filtered on or taught well.

I'm just saying; my experience is that these people, one way or another, got themselves some serious education and passed a fairly high intelligence bar, too. There's no way that these are China's minds with the most potential, but they might be among China's best educated minds, and that ain't nothin'

(As an aside, I certainly agree that you overlook a lot of good people if the first step in your filtering process is "has wealthy parents." both China and the US has serious problems with wasting good minds that happen to be born to parents who aren't wealthy. That this has been true for all of history doesn't excuse the truth.)

saberience• 7 years ago

So, this is anecdotal... but I worked for 5.5 years at a top American tech company, don't want to name names here. But about 50% of our data scientists were Chinese grad students taken after they finished their Masters or PhDs.

You can say what you like about "best minds" but I can assure you there are some seriously talented Chinese youth coming to the US for grad school and then ending up at top American companies and working jobs where high intelligence and ability is required. I was friends with many of said graduate students and many of them expressed fear and sadness about the Trump Visa situation and none of them wanted to go back to China.

freeflight4• 7 years ago

It's not like the situation in the US is that different [0], but apparently these days people have very short memories.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_briber...

bayesian_horse8• 7 years ago

A well-known Youtuber called Serpentza recently made a video about how Chinese students don't assimilate into American culture and how it is made difficult for them to assimilate, partly due to overt action from the Chinese government.

For one thing, Chinese culture is quite alien to western culture, and I don't mean that in a judgemental way, just that their spoken, written and body language is so much different that it is automatically harder for them. It doesn't help that they are told by the educational system and state media how great China is and how bad the US.

Also the students going abroad are highly selected. Not only for academic qualities, but students (or their families) who show a lack of loyalty to the state will have a tougher time even obtaining an exit visa. I wouldn't be surprised if cooperation with intelligence services in terms of spying on American universities isn't part of the deal, too.

xxxpupugo• 7 years ago

Never heard of such thing as exit visa...

kuzehanka3• 7 years ago

When you try to leave China, you're checked against a no-exit list and simply prevented from leaving if you're on it. No reason need be given to you. China currently keeps a number of political hostages this way and prevents undesirable nationals from leaving the country.

Most countries try to prevent undesirables from entering, china allows them to enter and then prevents them from leaving.

https://fox8.com/2019/01/03/us-warns-citizens-traveling-to-c...

fiblye2• 7 years ago

So because the societies are so different and have limited contact, should we seek to cut off one of the few opportunities young people from borderline enemy countries across the world have to interact, or give them a space to interact freely?

I know most Chinese students at my university kept to their in-group and never interacted with anyone else. I also know loads who found a new culture that they felt comfortable in, made new friends, and started families.

Even if a bunch go home and forget about their time in America, plenty are having life-changing and potentially society-changing experiences.

kuzehanka3• 7 years ago

It's not about societies being different. It's about Chinese international students engaging in blatant plagiarism, refusing to participate in classes, completely refusing to integrate, engaging in pro-chinese anti-local political activism, and basically expanding the CCPs political reach into foreign universities. This is something that all tertiary educators are painful aware of, as is the reluctance of faculty to take disciplinary action against international students because they're a major source of revenue. This is also something that is quite unique to Chinese and not other international students.

The Chinese students who don't subscribe to the CCP agenda are pressured by the others. They get labelled traitors, ostracised, word gets around and their families get harassed back at home.

In a nutshell, the CCP has identified inclusive societies as a soft target for remote propaganda achieved via international students. The CCP is highly selective in deciding who gets to leave the country to study abroad. This is something that couldn't even be discussed until recently because such discussions were/still are labeled as racism.

Stuff like this: http://www.tibetanjournal.com/tibetan-girl-wins-university-e...

If AU/US international students tried to do anything like this in China, they'd be deported in the following few days but not before getting death threats and having their entire family doxxed and harassed.

DiogenesKynikos6• 7 years ago

I've seen the same thing happen with British exchange students in the US, and they basically speak English!

bayesian_horse8• 7 years ago

I did not offer any opinion on what actions to take in that matter, nor do I have one at the moment.

I am generally in favor of international exchanges and people being allowed to go where they think they need to go. I'm not in favor of cheating your hosts.

Hasknewbie• 7 years ago

For one thing, Chinese culture is quite alien to western culture, and I don't mean that in a judgemental way, just that their spoken, written and body language is so much different that it is automatically harder for them.

I call BS on that one specific point with a counter-example: Taiwan (regardless of if it is/isn't part of China, it's a majority-Chinese-culture country).

I would agree though that students allowed to study at foreign universities are somewhat selected, in that the CCP forbids travels for 'tendentious' individuals. No doubt they would enjoy having "highly selected" ones, but they're just using basics metrics covering way too many candidates for that to be effective.

_lessthan02• 7 years ago

For one thing, Chinese culture is quite alien to western culture, and I don't mean that in a judgmental way, just that their spoken, written and body language is so much different that it is automatically harder for them. It doesn't help that they are told by the educational system and state media how great China is and how bad the US.

This is like me studying in the UK, meeting or bumping into US students. Very loud, aggressive because they cant handle alcohol, very arrogant. It also doesn't help that they are told by their educational system and gov that they are the greatest, the land of the free and can do what ever they please if they 'work' hard for it. Also how the US is the master nation of the world, that they are the world police.

whenchamenia2• 7 years ago

Funny, I find brits in the USA to be loud and poor at handling their drink. Some of the most self-centered people around. But stereotypes only hurt.

bayesian_horse8• 7 years ago

In Europe we generally see more drunken Brits, especially in the typical vacation spots. But I'd never say they have worse character or more prone to drunken bad behavior than others.

It's almost always a selection bias, where a certain type of people is drawn to a certain place.

msie4• 7 years ago

I don’t know what you are arguing for but let’s have some perspective here. Chinese people have been immigrating to North America for over a hundred years and have been successful despite differences in culture etc. It was more difficult back then too.

bayesian_horse8• 7 years ago

I didn't say it's impossible or doesn't happen.

With the Chinese foreign students it just seems to happen a lot less and that seems to be by design.

msie4• 7 years ago

Uh oh, I see a lot of Chinese names on academic papers describing breakthrough research.

ngcc_hk• 7 years ago

The original idea is to let the idea flow. Given the greatness of freedom, Democrat and human rights they would ... not in real life. Even down to have top scientists who do human baby experiment.

May be if one can go two ways at least both can learn the good and bad in both cultures. But no. Like one dudes trade it is free trade to the world but how many can research freely in china.

Good luck. Finally wake up. It is sad that the dream of good coin can drive out bad coin not working. Instead the coin just come, and still bad coin.

Still wonder why Soviet Union or Russia is not allowed by and large do that. But china can. It is a wonder of the 20th century - only found out in the 21st.

Muha_• 7 years ago

(with a terrible russian accent) USA can be the opened center of the free world or it can be the closed and most powerful contry in the world. If USA uses its position as the opened center of free world to become closed contry that rules the world, we all will have a hard time.

freewizard• 7 years ago

Like some comments pointed out, targeting on talent will be ineffective, if not backfiring. And just like most typical dumb policies, it's targeting on symptoms (students not integrating or researchers leaving) not real causes and issues in this country: race, economic and fake news.

The racial problems and slow economic in US is making international students less motivated to stay in US, and particularly when it comes to Chinese students, they have an easy fallback option.

The propaganda and fake news is making it worse. While on one side nationalism propaganda is flowing in from the China (particularly on WeChat and Zhihu), on the other side fake news targeting on Chinese students and broadly minorities/foreigners are pushing them further away.

In the past, US administrations have made some really smart decisions like helped establish one of best universities in China[1], and generously welcomed the Chinese student from Tiananmen Protest in 1989[2].

This administration is fond of self-claimed wars, targeting students and researchers is a war easy to win, even much easier than the trade war, but we all know history which tells us where it leads to.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsinghua_University#Early_20th...

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

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

Related Stories