Every nation has spies in the US, especially in our schools and government institutions. That people think such facts are “conspiracy theories” should be the real news story.

This really sounds more like a University club to keep people loyal to the government back-home, rather than an espionage operation.

Are they mutually exclusive, though? A 'loyalty club' can lead to some types of espionage, especially in an academic setting where the club members have access to some of the brightest minds in America and the research they're working on.

Research whose primary purpose is typically to get published. I have a hard time calling it espionage if you could get the same info from a JSTOR subscription, or emailing the reaserchers to talk about their work.

And the US probably does the same in other countries.

You’re being downvoted because you wrote something true.

Indeed! :-) Remember when Germany caught the US bugging their headquarters? The President looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Not that I approve of China's approach here, but the use of the word "cells" in the title is blatant scaremongering.

Consider a hypothetical title like "The Democratic Party Is Setting Up Cells in Alabama" and it becomes more obvious.

On one level I agree with you -- it's reminiscent of a recent laughable New Yorker piece calling the presence of a Chick-fil-A in NYC an "infiltration": https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/chick...

On the other hand, the presence of a domestic political party is a fundamentally different thing from the presence of a foreign entity working inside a sovereign entity like a state. Both the Republican and Democratic parties at least claim loyalty to the American people and its government and alignment with their interests.

The tragedy of losing our own Communist (and Socialist) Party is how they could counterbalance the narrative of China. Imagine Chinese and American Communist students having a debate in public of these universities. How many disaffected Chinese could we swing our way? Regardless of your stance of Marx, ceding the entire argument ground to the CCP doesn't do us any favors.

CPUSA was an actual communist party, while CCP's main ideology is Chinese corporate nationalism. I think engaging with CPUSA would most certainly take points off your social credit score back home.

This. The CCP is communist in name only (and maybe mechanisms of social control). There isn't much about China that is communist these days. I think China would more accurately be considered authoritarian capitalist and nationalist. China is only socialist in the same ways that Nazi Germany was socialist.

They gave it a solid try and only gave up after the inevitable famine, forced labour camps, poverty and imprisonment of political opposition. A solid display of Marxist government.

Then they worked out they could still have most of that without the widespread poverty with fascism!

Yeah, almost two decades after the famine. And were the Gang of Four not imprisoned political opposition?

Your comment reminds me of the famous Mao quote "No investigation, no right to speak."

Exactly. In any case, ask a Communist where Communism had been tried and the answer will be: nowhere. True Communists see it like true Christians see heaven. It exists because book says so, but getting there gets stopped by evil others.

Who cares? Conversation is a 2 way street. These groups could just as easily be used to introduce new ideas to the next generation of Chinese leaders.

Did you read the article? It is for Chinese only and it is under strict ideological control.

It is also about sending a message. If you do not quack like a duck, you will get into trouble.

I did. If they are in the U.S. then they will be exposed to other ideas too. That's a good opportunity to show them the value of different ideas. I doubt they are prohibited from having non Chinese friends or reading on the U.S. internet.

An analogy is - there are plenty of undercover Mormons, Jews, etc who keep up appearances for their family's sake. They've found a different way that works for them, so why wouldn't these people?

tl;dr People are complex and if you are trying to control minds, often your efforts can backfire.

> tl;dr People are complex and if you are trying to control minds, often your efforts can backfire.

I believe in that, but I also think you're underestimating the effectiveness of social control when done competently, which IMO is what's China's doing.

You don't need to control people's minds, just their social acceptance and livelihood guarantee.

Well played, almost bit it...