It isn't covert.

They only need to build a backdoor for Chinese officials to access the research data.

If it's located in China the Chinese government can access it, period. It's not secret or a conspiracy; it's how business is done.

There is no need for the CCP to conspire to control businesses. They have ultimate control of business law.

Varying economic and legal systems are different in the specifics about how they work, even if self interested individuals exist everywhere.

The differences you mention are an implementation detail - in some countries you have the rules written down as law, in others you got shady three letter agencies, kangaroo "FISA courts", and In-Q-Tel.

And? How's that different from China?

US, on the other hand, definitely doesn't - everyone from the top is chosen by politicians.

I’m not claiming anything controversial. The SPC openly says that they follow the guidance of the Party. https://qz.com/886665/xi-jinping-promised-legal-reform-in-ch...

The US has a judiciary comprising of judges picked by politicians from two competing parties.

Which, translated to western terms, is like guidance of the Department of Justice.

>politicians from two competing parties

Here the term “party” means something completely different from above. If you imagine the political system as layers, China places boundaries between those layers differently from the West, and if you continue to use the terms for those layers (“party”) without realizing this, you’ll arrive at silly conclusions.

Or more likely to merely work remotely as an employee of a captive company?

Looks like a minimum of 7 staggered projects where each one may already have a defined objective which needs to remain obscure to the actual participants under this program.

>Our goal is to create breakthroughs in natural science with new methodology

Directly straightforward, everybody wants this. It's completely true and challenging enough that the recruits will need to be immersed in this to the max, given anything they want in pursuit of this objective, with no stone unturned.

>and help the world.

Help the world do what?

None of these recruits will have any influence as to "what" turns out to be, and will be expected to never concern themseleves with this other side of the equation. Those that conform can be rewarded over the long term better than any non-monopoly can compare to, increasing the likelihood of having their challenging scientific objectives being eventually met.

Naievete looks so important that upcoming graduates appear to have precedece over established professionals. Rather than the proven performance that businesses can count on, there could instead be emphasis on freshly proven potential, willing to be indoctrinated into a "company" culture that is "humble, intelligent, compassionate and creative" on the party's own (carefully crafted) terms so any alternative cultural features can be nipped in the bud.

This is intended to be someone's first job [0] and they definitely want to see if they can find the kind of people who would have ordinarily worked for Bell Labs if it was still a monopoly.

As always you've got to carefully choose what kind of monopolies and their labs you want to promote, or even support at all.

If the monopolistic salvos are large enough, it might even be possible to fully brain-drain the competition while exponentially increasing their own chances of complete domination.

[0] Well actually almost every one of them's first job.

I’m self-deprecating because I’m on the fence on whether or not this is real or just some fictional plot I want to believe.

Chill, alright?