
Congress Bans Some Scientific Collaboration with China, Citing Espionage Risk - trotsky
http://blogs.forbes.com/williampentland/2011/05/07/congress-bans-scientific-collaboration-with-china-cites-high-espionage-risks/
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arturadib
It is unclear to me how this ban will incentivize China to stop spying on the
US. If anything, it might lead to more espionage to make up for the
information flow lost to the ban.

Also, the statement from congressman Wolf "we have nothing to gain from
dealing with them" seems to contradict the very purpose of a collaboration -
I'm yet to see a scientific collaboration that goes only one way.

As with most embargoes, both sides will probably lose.

A more reasonable response might be to engage with US companies and technology
hubs to improve their defenses.

~~~
akadien
You don't understand espionage. You don't incentivize a country to not spy;
you make it hard as hell for them to steal your secrets. And, who cares about
incentivizing China? We should continue to find ways to make it harder for
China to rip off our technology. This is a brilliant move against an outwardly
adversarial country and I hope it continues.

~~~
danssig
Very bizarre statement. If your super fancy technology that Chinese just
aren't smart enough to come up with on their own (xenophobia much?) needs to
scale you're going to be sending it to China for manufacturing anyway. The
sooner we get rid of this cave man "us vs. them" mentality the better.

~~~
briandear
It isn't that they aren't "smart" enough -- it's that there is no culture of
innovation. The best and brightest are running tech startups -- they work for
the military and police apparatus. Come to China, find some "innovations." The
last Chinese invention of any significance was gunpowder. Have a look a Baidu,
Maxthon and the warehouses full of copycat iPads. Look at their cars, military
machinery -- most of their military equipment is Soviet retreads or reverse-
engineered US stuff. The Chinese are dangerous because there is no end to
their industrial and scientific aggression. When a US company wants to do
business in China, they are forced to take Chinese "partners." The US side of
the office does the work and the Chinese side simply copies and sends the
information onward. There is no such thing as a trade secret for a foreign
company in China.

The culture is entrepreneurial, but it isn't one of invention, it's one of
doing something someone else has done and doing it cheaper and at a lower
quality. Come to China -- you'll see. There are some good things in China, but
they are the exception that proves the rule.

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gburt
Title is misleading. The clause prevents some sources of federally funded
science from collaborating with China.

"The clause prohibits the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
(OSTP) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from
coordinating any joint scientific activity with China."

That said, this seems pretty crazy to me.

~~~
burgerbrain
We ban NASA from collaborating with China, meanwhile NASA collaboration in the
past with the Soviet Union and Russia has proved very beneficial
(scientifically and politically).

~~~
est
While Russia has tons of innovations on aerospace, what about China?

~~~
orijing
It launched people into orbit, hasn't it? It's been much more successful than
India, for instance. But you're right that compared to Russia its
accomplishments are fewer. Perhaps it's just a matter of time.

~~~
arank
_It's been much more successful than India_

I will appreciate some data here!

~~~
burke
Mars doesn't tell nearly the whole story, but this sticks out in my mind as an
interesting infographic, notably devoid of any "India" lines.
<http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/images/4/2009/10/GoCGR.jpg>

~~~
arank
Note that China's mention is with Russia in that info-graphic. And here is the
wikipedia page of that mission which clearly states that Chinese Mars obiter
will be sent with Fobos-Grunt. While I don't discredit China of that but its a
different thing to launch a satellite as opposed to sending your satellite on
vehicle launched by some other country. FYI:

India's 'independent' mars mission is not far -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Space_Research_Organisat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Space_Research_Organisation#Planetary_exploration)

India's moon mission was the first one to prove the presence of water on moon
-
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1#Water_discovered_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-1#Water_discovered_on_the_moon)

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pnathan
If you follow the hacking over the last few years in relation to China, a
clear pattern emerges: China wants United States IP. It's about time someone
started taking that threat seriously in the US.

~~~
bigwally
You may notice that Israel has stolen more intellectual property worldwide
than China.

But bashing China is fashionable.

~~~
briandear
Israel doesn't have a habit of threatening US interests. Israel didn't attempt
to shoot down our aircraft and hold our aircrews hostage. Israel isn't
threatening Taiwan, propping up North Korean dictators or funneling weapons to
Darfur. Israel is actually a partner in security as opposed to an opponent.
Israel isn't manipulating currency or holding world financial markets hostage.
I guess Israel bashing is fashionable. By the way, you have no evidence that
Israel has stolen more IP than China -- that's just a nonsensical claim.

~~~
atakan_gurkan
"Israel didn't attempt to shoot down our aircraft and hold our aircrews
hostage."

But they did attack US Navy:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident>

"Israel isn't threatening Taiwan"

But they do threaten and attacked their neighbours. By the same token, China
is not threatening Syria.

"propping up North Korean dictators or funneling weapons to Darfur"

Israel is one of the biggest arms dealers in the world, and a lot of those
weapons go to the hands of various dictators, e.g. in Africa.

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bradfordw
Heh, so are we going to kick out their students which we've enrolled in some
of our top research universities?

~~~
nkassis
That would be counter productive, what we are trying to do in infiltrate their
intellectual elite and put people with our liberal views in place.
MOuahahahahahaa.

This protectionist stuff is stupid. I collaborate with people in China on some
of my work and one of them started the project I'm developing right now I'm
just expanding the project and making it more generic. Lucky for me, the
Canadian Gov is the one funding this project.

~~~
john4
If you're trying to claim that giving Chinese youth student visas to study at
elite western universities will create a more liberal, pro-western
intelligentsia in China, you are flatly wrong.

The Chinese who come here (to the US) are part of the growing Chinese middle-
and upperclass and tend to be the most nationalistic of all. Talk to them next
time you get a chance; ask them what they think of democracy and freedom, and
they'll likely spout PRC government propaganda about how the "Chinese people
need to be controlled." We make them into scientists and engineers without
succeeding, and perhaps without even really attempting, to make them
democrats. We are potentially creating big problems for ourselves and our
western and east Asian allies down the road by equipping China with the
skilled professionals it needs to produce the weapons of war to threaten the
free world.

As for protectionism, if it really bothers you, perhaps you should complain
about China's "luxury tax" (import duty) and government-mandated technology
transfers for access to their production and consumer markets. China is easily
the most protectionist member of the G20.

~~~
cabalamat
If, as proponents of Western civilisation argue (and which I personally
believe, FWIW), Western ideals of freedom are universal and every society will
eventually want them, then by definition some Chinese studying in the West ill
pick up some Western ideals.

If the West is wrong about our ideals being universal, then our society is no
better than others anyway and it doesn't matter (in the long run for the
overall good of humanity) if the Chinese conquer us.

~~~
Prolorn
> "If the West is wrong about our ideals being universal, then our society is
> no better than others anyway and it doesn't matter (in the long run for the
> overall good of humanity) if the Chinese conquer us."

If our ideals are relative or subjective, wouldn't that make it all the more
important to speak out, as to do otherwise would be conceptual-suicide?

Even if other cultures don't hold my values, _I_ still must value them.

I don't disagree about educating foreign students, by the way. Barring
empirical evidence to the contrary, my feeling is that exposure to foreign
cultures ought to dampen nationalism in the long run.

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hammock
"They are trying to get our technology secrets" is not a valid reason for this
policy, since you haven't shown conclusively that it's a bad thing to give
them our technology.

~~~
trotsky
It seems likely you'd feel differently if it was your IP getting taken.

~~~
burgerbrain
If it were his IP getting taken, would he really need the government to tell
him not to do that?

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fleitz
I could understand if we're not supposed to be giving our launch coordinates
to China, but something like an interial navigation system has plenty of uses.

This seems silly overbearing and not likely to effect much change as how China
commits espionage is through spies in places like Sandia, not collaborating on
science projects. The only difference between our spies and theirs is that
ours haven't gotten caught so far.

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newmediaclay
Great article in the NYT the other day about how these protectionist policies
are going to prevent China from investing their massive cash reserves in US
ventures:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/business/global/04yuan.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/business/global/04yuan.html).

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burke
So we cut NASA's budget to basically nothing, then ban them from collaborating
with China? These are sad times.

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iamapipebomb
"....On these computers was information about all of the casework I have done
on behalf of political dissidents and human rights activists around the
world."

Does science collaboration/espionage endanger people's lives?

~~~
JakeSc
The quote you cited was not an example of scientific collaboration or
espionage. In this case, yes, the espionage probably endangered someone's
life, given China's human rights track record.

I see your point, though, and agree that science collaboration is not harmful.
However, I think that the article was mainly focusing on Chinese military
advancement, as most of the attacks cited in the article were on our military
infrastructure. Again, I would say that a more advanced military will endanger
people's lives.

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mturmon
If you read the backstory on this, about the attempted hacking of the
computers in Congress, it starts to sound similar to the reasons Google
stopped censoring google.cn.

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danssig
It's 2011 and we're still just cave men afraid of our shadows. What rational
reason would China have for trying to invade the US? Doing something like that
would just piss off the rest of the world and wouldn't solve any problems they
have anyway.

~~~
briandear
It isn't about invasion its about the IP theft and industrial/scientific
espionage. The China threat is extremely real, especially in high tech areas.
The Chinese version of "collaboration" is "you innovate, we report to
Beijing." The Chinese intelligence services are the most active in the world
-- they make the KGB look like girl scouts. There's a reason for it. Spend
some time doing business in China and you'll understand.

~~~
danssig
What are you afraid they're going to do? Suddenly they're as advanced as the
US and then.... ? If they still can't innovate without us as some claim then
nothing will change, their people will just be better off and they'll have
gotten there a lot cheaper.

Personally I'd like to see the rest of the world catch up as soon as possible.
I don't subscribe to the idea that for us to be happy people somewhere halfway
around the world need to be miserable.

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atakan_gurkan
I submitted a piece from Physics Today to HN [1] a few days ago. The article
describes how the scientific interaction between the US and China helped the
Chinese nuclear program.

For the record, I do not think the benefits from such a wide ban is worth the
price. IMHO banning Chinese visitors from NASA facilities is a terrible idea.
Why make it so wide? I cannot help but think this decision is driven by some
desire for "punishment", which is not logical at all.

1: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2518011>

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dvdhsu
If we don't share, won't they just break in to get it?

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amireza
Is it really possible to hack all these heavy files on super secret(isolated)
computers from abroad?

------
known
Does it make any difference for China sitting on a pile of $3 trillion
reserves?

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kurumo
Cold War 2.0 China edition.

~~~
akadien
I hope we win this one, too.

~~~
briandear
Their economy is headed for a significant crisis in the next 5 years. They put
on a pretty facade, but it's smoke and mirrors once you get past the empty
concrete shells.

------
VladRussian
somebody got a chance to finally implement their dark deep dreams - wolves,
scientific collaboration...

