
The Chinese Communist Party Is Setting Up Cells at Universities Across America - gok
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/18/the-chinese-communist-party-is-setting-up-cells-at-universities-across-america-china-students-beijing-surveillance/
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DataWorker
Every nation has spies in the US, especially in our schools and government
institutions. That people think such facts are “conspiracy theories” should be
the real news story.

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confounded
This really sounds more like a University club to keep people loyal to the
government back-home, rather than an espionage operation.

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alehul
Are they mutually exclusive, though? A 'loyalty club' can lead to some types
of espionage, especially in an academic setting where the club members have
access to some of the brightest minds in America and the research they're
working on.

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gizmo686
Research whose primary purpose is typically to get published. I have a hard
time calling it espionage if you could get the same info from a JSTOR
subscription, or emailing the reaserchers to talk about their work.

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iamnothere
Not that I approve of China's approach here, but the use of the word "cells"
in the title is blatant scaremongering.

Consider a hypothetical title like "The Democratic Party Is Setting Up Cells
in Alabama" and it becomes more obvious.

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DanAndersen
On one level I agree with you -- it's reminiscent of a recent laughable New
Yorker piece calling the presence of a Chick-fil-A in NYC an "infiltration":
[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-
gastronomy/chick...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-
gastronomy/chick-fil-as-creepy-infiltration-of-new-york-city)

On the other hand, the presence of a domestic political party is a
fundamentally different thing from the presence of a foreign entity working
inside a sovereign entity like a state. Both the Republican and Democratic
parties at least claim loyalty to the American people and its government and
alignment with their interests.

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JamesLeonis
The tragedy of losing our own Communist (and Socialist) Party is how they
could counterbalance the narrative of China. Imagine Chinese and American
Communist students having a debate in public of these universities. How many
disaffected Chinese could we swing our way? Regardless of your stance of Marx,
ceding the entire argument ground to the CCP doesn't do us any favors.

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sterlind
CPUSA was an actual communist party, while CCP's main ideology is Chinese
corporate nationalism. I think engaging with CPUSA would most certainly take
points off your social credit score back home.

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malandrew
This. The CCP is communist in name only (and maybe mechanisms of social
control). There isn't much about China that is communist these days. I think
China would more accurately be considered authoritarian capitalist and
nationalist. China is only socialist in the same ways that Nazi Germany was
socialist.

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johnzim
They gave it a solid try and only gave up after the inevitable famine, forced
labour camps, poverty and imprisonment of political opposition. A solid
display of Marxist government.

Then they worked out they could still have most of that without the widespread
poverty with fascism!

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alistoriv
Yeah, almost two decades after the famine. And were the Gang of Four not
imprisoned political opposition?

Your comment reminds me of the famous Mao quote "No investigation, no right to
speak."

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grizzles
Who cares? Conversation is a 2 way street. These groups could just as easily
be used to introduce new ideas to the next generation of Chinese leaders.

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eveningcoffee
Did you read the article? It is for Chinese only and it is under strict
ideological control.

It is also about sending a message. If you do not quack like a duck, you will
get into trouble.

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grizzles
I did. If they are in the U.S. then they will be exposed to other ideas too.
That's a good opportunity to show them the value of different ideas. I doubt
they are prohibited from having non Chinese friends or reading on the U.S.
internet.

An analogy is - there are plenty of undercover Mormons, Jews, etc who keep up
appearances for their family's sake. They've found a different way that works
for them, so why wouldn't these people?

tl;dr People are complex and if you are trying to control minds, often your
efforts can backfire.

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badosu
> _tl;dr People are complex and if you are trying to control minds, often your
> efforts can backfire._

I believe in that, but I also think you're underestimating the effectiveness
of social control when done competently, which IMO is what's China's doing.

You don't need to control people's minds, just their social acceptance and
livelihood guarantee.

