While it doesn't have the immediate satisifaction of a twitter pitchfork mob, I appreciate a measured approach IF there is serious (albeit slow moving) action taken. The last thing we need is an equally impactful response in the opposite direction. He's the head of the school and needs to balance a wide range of perspectives and demands. The context has been set so now I'm watching to see if the actions back it up. If not, you're right in your immediate assessment, but this has big geo-political implications and needs to take time. It's similar to the Meng Wanzhou extradition fiasco; she was under house arrest in a mansion while 2 Canadians languished in a Chinese prison. IT was completely unfair and imbalanced but we had to go through our process, not stoop to theirs.
>>The last thing we need is an equally impactful response in the opposite direction.
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.
China is banking on the hunch that it's impossible to rhetorically separate "China" and "Chinese", and that western powers or their citizens will fuck up and engage in hate crimes or war crimes that...
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.
Just imagine the headlines if they did do something more impactful like taking a stance and expelling the relevant students. Many headlines would be conflating this expulsion with racism and who knows what other rhetoric. Not only that, but the university would be sued for years if they did this. Also, this guy would get fired in at-most a year. Not necessarily for his stance, but for rocking the boat and bringing so much attention to the university.
People don't realize just how much the rules are stacked in favor of bullies.
yup, abusive, and stalking. Including on HN - every single HN post that opposed CCP actions gets resistance from the handful of guaranteed downvotes to verbose advocacy. Russia has been the undisputed world champion of dezinformatsyia for over a century, but it looks like CCP is coming for their title , especially with their push into the US academic-military realm (and they are shameless about copying US tech, surprising for a culture that values face-saving).
Perhaps. Indeed, I haven't done a controlled study.
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!)
I'm not expressing an opinion or any information on US-originated psyops as it applies to foreign social media.
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!
