
Lee Bollinger: No, I won’t start spying on my foreign-born students - Anon84
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-i-wont-start-spying-on-my-foreign-born-students/2019/08/29/01c80e84-c9b2-11e9-a1fe-ca46e8d573c0_story.html
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ETHisso2017
If the US feels it's in a competition with China over STEM, why is it helpful
for Chinese expats working in the US - especially those in sensitive STEM
fields on behalf of US universities or tech companies - to feel persecuted?

~~~
hackerbabz
It’s not. Nothing about this benefits anyone. It’s purely nativism and racism.

~~~
mc32
Is it racism when the CPC denies visas to US journalists, is it Chinese
nativism when they deny visas to other foreign nationals?

Is it racism when everything bad is attributed to Russians?

Not everything is about intersectionality.

~~~
guerrilla
> Is it racism when everything bad is attributed to Russians?

Yes.

> Not everything is about intersectionality.

Turns out everything involving oppressed groups is, by definition.

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mc32
I don’t see how race is involved when it comes to Russians ( it’s something
else, but it’s not racism). Non persecuted Chinese visitors are not an
oppressed group when they volunteer to come here —just as I don’t
automatically become oppressed if I get summarily turned back at PEK as a non
Chinese.

~~~
guerrilla
Compare the definition of racism with the phenomenon of russophobia and you'll
see how russophobia is racism.

"Racism is the belief in the superiority of one race over another. It may also
include prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people
because they are of a different race or ethnicity, or the belief that members
of different races or ethnicities should be treated differently"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
Russian_sentiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Russian_sentiment)

When you're selectively denied doing what you want (i.e. to "volunteer to come
here") BECAUSE of the group you belong to then you are oppressed. It's not
about what happenes to arbitrary specific individuals, it's about what happens
to members of a group due to their membership in that group.

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doctorpangloss
Seems like a pretty arcane argument.

The best reason to be nice to foreign students is that being nice is good, and
sinophobia is bad. Or, to help a university president interpret his own facts:

> The incompatibility of university culture with systematic scrutiny may
> explain why even law enforcement officials who have visited our campus have
> offered little prescriptive guidance, instead offering that we should be
> vigilant.

Because the government is primarily motivated by sinophobia.

~~~
Leary
The government is primarily motivated by not giving China technologies that
could pose a threat to national security, however much it may run counter to
the cultural values and long term health of the universities.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Why is the general population of college students being given access to
technology that's vital to national security? If it's that important, no one
should be getting a look at it without a passing a security clearance. A
professor isn't qualified to do that in any way.

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dqpb
> _Academic research is intended to be shared — released into the public
> domain to advance human progress._

Tell that to Elsevier.

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Merrill
Research with national security implications should be done by University
Affiliated Research Centers, by the National Laboratories, or under contract
by corporations. These types of organization can maintain appropriate levels
of security not available in a research university setting.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Affiliated_Research...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Affiliated_Research_Center)

A parallel system for economically sensitive applied research funded by the
government needs to be established. For this type of research, nationals of
all other countries should be similarly screened and vetted, since many
countries which are political and military allies are economic competitors.

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rolph
im sure there is a very paranoid place that demands monitoring of academics,
historically academics have been scrutinized for standing outside the
engineered mold used to cast normal tax paying obedient citizens

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_Secrecy_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_Secrecy_Act)

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huomri
This is simply xenophobia.

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fortran77
His name means "The Baker" in French!

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superflit
If you don't want to protect US interests and US intellectual property while
you are benefitting from it maybe you should not have students.

Whatever Americans want or not, they have the face the fact that most
countries don't play "fair" and if they have the chance they will wipe the US
as soon as possible.

~~~
hurrdurr2
I feel like you need to read the article again, that is, if you read it in the
first place.

The author made many good points about why spying on foreign born students is
a bad idea. One of which is that the vast majority of scientific research is
published for all to see, including our "enemies".

~~~
gingabriska
Then how come we hear about foreign born professors stealing secrets from
universities? Are those fake news? I am genuinely curious.

~~~
pelario
Are you really curious? If yes you could give some sources about what "you
heard", otherwise it is not even fake news...

~~~
unscrupulous_sw
Looking at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_in_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_in_the_United_States)
there's at least two cases that are by professors (Xiaoxing Xi and Yi-Chi
Shih).

But honestly the vast majority of the knowledge transfer is happening through
more legitimate means. Even the famous Stanford machine learning professor
Andrew Ng got poached by Baidu.

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notlukesky
The only certain way of preventing intellectual theft is preventing foreigners
from entry to US universities - and companies.

As for granting foreigners visa status after graduation it depresses the wages
of Americans (although helps US companies at least in the short run because of
lowered wages).

The risk is that these foreigners can pack up and leave the US at any time and
unless their exit is prevented they can theoretically take their know how and
mental blueprints with them (for example:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Li](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Li)
). Non-competes are rarely ever enforced internationally (and illegal even in
California). The father of the American Industrial Revolution Samuel Slater
evaded the British emigration ban and was called “Slater the Traitor”.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater)

Policy makers will have to decide whether to ban foreigners (or the undesired
foreigners of the day) or accept the real or perceived risk. Simple cost
benefit analysis for policy makers.

The reality is that these measures either way will only change things at the
margins when looked at from a very long term perspective in terms of the rise
and fall of nations and empires.

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mikeash
That’s far from certain. You think US citizens can’t steal IP?

The only way to prevent it is to have nothing worth stealing.

