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Chinese Scientists Are Leaving the United States (foreignpolicy.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Chinese Scientists Are Leaving the United States::Here’s why that spells bad news for Washington.

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[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

On the one hand I understand, on the other, having worked there, it seems insane.

It's like volunteering to go back to prison, work is much harder, society is harder, the government is somewhere between apathetic to cruel and the office politics is unimaginable.

Also my understanding is that Chinese who go back are never fully trusted again.

[-] cyd@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

Well, they're definitely not trusted in the US. Many perceive it as a matter of safety for themselves and their families. The perception is that if you're Chinese, no matter how naturalized, the most innocuous misstep will make the US government come down on you like a ton of bricks.

And it's not exactly a wrong perception; news about spurious prosecutions of Chinese and Chinese-American scientists have been circulating very widely in the scientific community. One can easily see how going back to China is viewed as the lesser of two evils.

[-] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

IP theft isn't exactly an "innocuous misstep", it costs us about half a trillion dollars per year. Maybe not doing that would help.

[-] cyd@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What I'm talking about is stuff like the case of Xi Xiaoxing, who was arrested and prosecuted for carrying schematics for a piece of non-secret commodity equipment.

[-] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world -3 points 1 year ago

A rare case when you hear hoof beats and find a zebra. Sucks to be that guy but I'm not going to lose sleep over it, our law enforcement and intelligence agencies are doing what they should.

[-] cyd@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

It ain't rare, but the vast majority of cases don't get known outside the scientific community, just as there's a much larger number of police abuse incidents against black people for each George Floyd.

Anyway, the point is that there are legit reasons Chinese American scientists feel compelled to leave, that's all. For them, it's not simply a matter of "if you haven't done anything wrong you don't have anything to worry about".

[-] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

lol k

[-] Ddhuud@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 year ago

Paywall

[-] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Archive link

[+] betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world -25 points 1 year ago

Oh no, guess we'll need to find somebody else to pilfer our trade secrets for a hostile government. I hear Iran has a few nuclear physicists eager to get some on-the-job training.

[+] Something_Complex@lemmy.world -7 points 1 year ago

[removed by mod]

[-] Brainsploosh@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

There are so many factors in place already, that this seems a natural escalation.

You have civil discontentment/unrest in China, a power structure having trouble uniting a populace getting accustomed to higher living standards, a splintered and war-taxed US also fighting civil unrest and also with a troubled power structure.

If any of them were threatened by famine, they'd basically have to go to war to keep the populace under control.

Also, China has been jockeying to assert their global power and haven't had a better position in modern times.

[-] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Xi pushed away from Deng's more passive strategy, he went too hard and gave the US to align everyone else defensively, Ukraine was a lucky break for that too.

This is geopolitical musical chairs and the music has mostly stopped, Xi needed 10 more years to get his navy in the position it needed to be, now he's caught with 1 broken ally and the rest of his region not looking that friendly. And his economy is collapsing.

This was a very lucky break for the west all-told, I get Chinese engineers looking back with rose-colored glasses but I suspect they'll regret that soon, China now isn't Hu's China of the early 2010s, things are going to get extremely ugly over the next 5 years. The west will have it rough too, but shouldn't be nearly as bad, Chinese real estate is... truly incomprehensible.

[-] Bonskreeskreeskree@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

China would get fucked physically in the short term and economically until the end of the ccps regime

this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023

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