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.
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!
People don't realize just how much the rules are stacked in favor of bullies.
China is the worlds weird abusive ex-boyfriend.
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...).
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.
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!)
>>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.
As you, I'd expect that it exists, but I have little information on the extent. I'd assume it is competent, but it isn't relevant here, since the overall topic is about CCP operations on the grounds of a US university and operations here in a US-based online forum.
If you have information of interest on US ops in foreign (to the US) social media, please post it!
Then why mention Russian psyops here? Had you stuck purely to CCP matters I'd believe you.
>"If you have information of interest on US ops in foreign (to the US) social media, please post it!"
Really? What am I for you, free QA?
Only time will tell what actually is done.
Students arguing politics, even if uncivil, isn't something you want to be "no tolerance" about. There are lines though, and this is one.
Emotions are good, but excessive emotions without deep understanding is something very different.
I'd say harassment falls into this category, so no proof of collusion with the CCP is needed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Edit: actually not sure if they are foreign nationals. Maybe someone knows if same applies?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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
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.
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.
In the meantime, debating without harassing each other is the best way forward.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
…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.
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.
What is it about Purdue that makes them unlikely to take this seriously?
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.
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.
It definitely cuts down on the number of sane people being willing to be seen doing whatever it is that typically causes that response.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
The problem with referring to the official record is that one misses what isn't in the official record.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Agree there is pressure, but the more admins cave, the worse it is for everyone.
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.
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.
Freedom has a price that must be paid in blood. Do you think China will magically become free someday? No, it will take the blood of millions to overthrown that regime.
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.
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
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...
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.