>> I believe this will continue and I fully expect that at some point the United States will deem those born in mainland China, regardless of current citizenship, to be a security risk and they won't be allowed to work in areas of national security or national interest.
For top secret programs, maybe that makes sense, but if you’re thinking it should apply to any science/engineering areas with broad national interest/security applicability, it’s not a good idea at all. First, besides the moral implications (handled by others), there’s the fact that it preemptively disarms the US of one of its greatest strengths: the ability to brain drain other countries of their top talent and add it to its own. How did we do the Manhattan Project? By taking in all the scientists fleeing Germany and about-to-be-occupied mainland Europe (and after that, Operation Paperclip gave us a leg up in the Cold War). This would be a massive self-own, and it’s not worth it just because it might somewhat reduce industrial espionage a bit. What we should do is give every STEM graduate school graduate in good standing from other countries full status and ideally a job.
Having a Chinese grad student as an asset on a science project is practically a meme, and China is indeed a huge labor pool from which we can cherry pick the best and the brightest. It makes no sense for us to educate their elites and then force them to go home even when they want to stay and become Americans.
And if blackmailing families back home becomes an issue or real fear, then the State Department should do something about it. We’re not powerless here.
Having seen how the actions driven by fear of industrial/national espionage can often be far worse than the industrial/national espionage ever would’ve been, I’m wary of taking measures that would directly mitigate our greatest strengths. Let’s lean into the whole “Statue of Liberty” Nation of Immigrants mythology, and build on it. It is our strength and it’d be foolish to give it up due to fear that China will copy our stuff. I mean, they’re going to do that anyway, even if we put Chinese background people in internment camps. Our only chance is winning based on speed of innovation (which can’t happen if we spend all our resources on paranoia… paranoia has a MASSIVE overhead and slows innovation to a crawl… no one can steal our inventions if we stop inventing stuff!) and the cultural victory of acting like the good guys and being the city on the hill. Remember, this is a game we now have to play by convincing people to like us and be our allies. We are no longer the unchallenged hegemon like in the 90s; we need our allies.
I'm not sure it isn't. It is naturally unpopular among USians to contemplate that they might not be perfect rulers of the world. But it is pretty obvious that one party rule is not a good idea. The US is bad enough with checks on its absolute power. Heaven forbid they should be unchecked.
That's not anti-American. The sentiment applies equally to everyone. Russia should not have complete control of the world. Nor should Holland or Iceland. The USA has way too much power and influence as it stands. Thank goodness there is some opposition to provide some balance.
USians watch a movie like "The Courier" or "Hunt for Red October" and applaud the courage and foresight of a man who was willing to be a traitor to the USSR in order to save the world. But they villify anybody who would be so treacherous as betray the USA. NATO missiles in Poland: good. Warsaw Pact missiles in Poland: bad.
Unproven vulnerabilities in Huawei equipment: unacceptable. Replace it all with American products proven repeatedly to be espionage vectors of the USA government: good.
I wonder if a post like this one will attract more interest from Chinese intelligence or from USA intelligence.
Your Polish example is laughable. Poland offered $2 billion to have permanent U.S. bases in Poland but, obviously, did not welcome Russian invasion. "Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!"
So the Soviets defended their helpless neighbors for free; the U.S. occupied Poland then demanded that Poland pay money to wealthy war-profiteering capitalists for the privilege?
It is funny that denizens on Madison Avenue think they have a corner on spin. "Caveat emptor!"
You're relativising and disregarding how power balances occur in practice.
First, there is a massive difference between empires. Sure, the US has done and is doing a bunch of shitty things in the world, but between two evils, would you prefer the American jackboot or the Chinese jackboot?
Second, nobody volunteers to surrender power for the sake of some power balance. Power balance occurs because there's a stalemate.
In the case of countries like Poland, these countries have an interest in playing empires against each other. Let them "bid" for influence and may they check each other's power.
> Sure, the US has done and is doing a bunch of shitty things in the world, but between two evils, would you prefer the American jackboot or the Chinese jackboot?
When this kind of question comes up on Internet, I'm always a bit troubled, because there is some sort of hidden faith that the respondent won't be from a place that suffered from the US. Even though the person asking the question knows about the events, they never think about it when asking. On the other hand, positive events are remembered vividly (e.g. discussions about Europe almost invariably involve some WW2 references).
In reality, the answer will probably vary depending on whether the respondent is European or Iraqi, Vietamese or Cuban, etc.
I would say that it's some kind of heavy confirmation bias that makes people genuinely ask these questions, when an objective analysis makes the answer not evident.
It would be perfectly possible to be a chinese shill in an american site like hackernews, spreading chinese propaganda e misinformation all day long, while living in the US.
Try to do the same, but spreading american propaganda, in a chinese forum, while living in China.
Ah, the misleading comparison. We are talking about freedom of expression and then you conveniently conflate it with the freedom to have work or business relationships with an enemy or sanctioned foreign entity.
The original point still apply, you have freedom in the USA to defend and express your favorable opinion even when this goes counter the government interests. You could even protest against the us military during a war.
You can do this in China unlike you really want to be imprisoned and tortured.
China is a dictatorship. América is a democracy. Sure, there are plenty of abuse from the police, the federal government, but those abuses once exposed and questioned in the court of law, have severe consequences for their perpetrators. China engages routinely in torture, censorship and genocide, a truly criminal state.
It was not for the oil it was to make sure that the oil would continue to be traded in US dollars if you ask me.
Trade happening in dollars is something the US can control. Maybe 10~15 years ago I would say the Euro was a possible alternative to the dollar but in 2021 and the spinelessness of brussels its pretty much the dollar with a different stamp on it.
The US didn't invade countries and kill millions of people, and the US gained absolutely nothing in terms of natural resources including Oil. Iraqi Oil contracts went to European players like Total. There is no Oil or anything else of material value in Afghanistan.
Lol. It's conspiracy theories that US Imperialism is driven by defence contractors who can 'make a few billion'. They obviously err on one side of the equation, and can have some influence but they are not the drivers of anything. The Defence Establishment is well aware of the cost of war, they're more likely than the White House to be be realistic about engagements.
plus, it's hard to compartmentalize science. Once you get the bomb, it's not that hard for other people to figure out. So do you ban all German scientists and get the bomb 20 years later (and maybe let the Russians poach them, because...well it is a market with demand...), or get the Germans, and lose a few to espionage/traitors.
I feel these national borders on comms equipment will eventually be a paper tiger of sorts, because, well, tech is tech, and it's hard to stop the flow. And things work best with open standards anyway.
> And if blackmailing families back home becomes an issue or real fear
Threats of blackmail against families have long been a reality and a key tool the CCP uses against overseas students and businessmen.
There are 8bn people in the world, US can definitely afford to pay close scrutiny to Chinese citizens, they don’t hold a monopoly on skilled labor.
> Our only chance is winning based on speed of innovation
Advantage of speed in innovation is rendered useless when the Chinese just sit & wait while you spend billions on r&d only to steal all your IP when your ready to launch your product.
That’s not how IP works. Having access to documents but without the culture and the human capital to implement it is almost useless.
Our problem is that some entities think that speed of innovation is secondary and always takes a back seat to secrecy. That has a stifling effect on innovation, as it’s impossible to be perfectly careful, and the end result is progress stalls… which means China doesn’t steal anything because there’s nothing to steal… so they’ll just innovate stuff themselves and we’ll have nothing. What a victory!
> Having access to documents but without the culture and the human capital to implement it is almost useless.
I don't think I'd consider it "almost useless". Having source code, material compositions, trade secrets, etc is a significant step towards just outright copying your innovations and using it against you. It takes countless dollars and hours to incept the most basic building blocks of innovation. Hell, consider how much is discovered by accident.
Politely, I think it almost borders on arrogance to believe that intangibles like "culture" are required to compete. On the topic of human capital, China's already got it. They've also shown they view their human capital like human cattle.
There was good discussion about Nortel yesterday. With nice details from insiders. It’s always nice to blame somebody for local management mistakes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28656445
> there’s the fact that it preemptively disarms the US of one of its greatest strengths: the ability to brain drain other countries of their top talent and add it to its own
Worthy adversaries can turn each other's strengths into weaknesses
For top secret programs, maybe that makes sense, but if you’re thinking it should apply to any science/engineering areas with broad national interest/security applicability, it’s not a good idea at all. First, besides the moral implications (handled by others), there’s the fact that it preemptively disarms the US of one of its greatest strengths: the ability to brain drain other countries of their top talent and add it to its own. How did we do the Manhattan Project? By taking in all the scientists fleeing Germany and about-to-be-occupied mainland Europe (and after that, Operation Paperclip gave us a leg up in the Cold War). This would be a massive self-own, and it’s not worth it just because it might somewhat reduce industrial espionage a bit. What we should do is give every STEM graduate school graduate in good standing from other countries full status and ideally a job.
Having a Chinese grad student as an asset on a science project is practically a meme, and China is indeed a huge labor pool from which we can cherry pick the best and the brightest. It makes no sense for us to educate their elites and then force them to go home even when they want to stay and become Americans.
And if blackmailing families back home becomes an issue or real fear, then the State Department should do something about it. We’re not powerless here.
Having seen how the actions driven by fear of industrial/national espionage can often be far worse than the industrial/national espionage ever would’ve been, I’m wary of taking measures that would directly mitigate our greatest strengths. Let’s lean into the whole “Statue of Liberty” Nation of Immigrants mythology, and build on it. It is our strength and it’d be foolish to give it up due to fear that China will copy our stuff. I mean, they’re going to do that anyway, even if we put Chinese background people in internment camps. Our only chance is winning based on speed of innovation (which can’t happen if we spend all our resources on paranoia… paranoia has a MASSIVE overhead and slows innovation to a crawl… no one can steal our inventions if we stop inventing stuff!) and the cultural victory of acting like the good guys and being the city on the hill. Remember, this is a game we now have to play by convincing people to like us and be our allies. We are no longer the unchallenged hegemon like in the 90s; we need our allies.