The average Chinese is just as clever, if not more clever, than the average Westerner. They'll absolutely produce good results given good funding. But the tradition of the University is not Chinese; the Areopagitica is alien to mainstream Chinese civic and intellectual values; the inviolability of the right to interrogate the universe as a free, searching, essentially individual being is not part of the mentality driving all this investment. It is essentially like 20th century Soviet enthusiasm for science and mathematics. The government expects the benefits of a world class intelligentsia with the downsides held in check at the point of a rifle.
I think the US and Europe should slam the (academic) doors shut; no more collaboration until the Chinese government learns some basic humanity. The strategy of influencing the Chinese by educating their elite has not worked. Clearly.
Accepting Chinese and other international students is for the USA's own benefit, and not some form of foreign charity. We get some of the smartest people in the world who do great work here and finance a huge chunk of operating expenses of universities through high tuition fees. Plus loads of them stay back and work for or start companies right here rather than in their home countries.
Yes, I do recognize that. However, it also benefits the Chinese regime enormously, and I think a future in which that regime has the scientific and technological capacity that we currently have is unlikely to be good for humankind (not that Western governments have been perfect ... or even basically good).
No. I said they're cleverer than we are, at least on average. I said the Chinese government should learn some humanity (which they obviously should -- and given the current state of the US gov't and Western politics broadly, ours should too).
There's no concrete way to measure intelligence, and if there were, copying a web browser from google and calling it their own would not be a sign of intelligence to me.
I think the US and Europe should slam the (academic) doors shut; no more collaboration until the Chinese government learns some basic humanity. The strategy of influencing the Chinese by educating their elite has not worked. Clearly.