What Liberal principle requires you to employ and inform your enemies who are actively engaging in espionage? I didn't say anything about Chinese /ethnicity/, only nationality. There are millions of ethnically Chinese people around the world who are not Chinese nationals and are not bound by the same legal framework.
> This is literally presumption of guilt based on where someone was born.
Not where someone is born, but whom they owe allegiance to. If you do not discriminate based on someone's allegiances, then on what basis would you expect it to be appropriate to discriminate? The idea that all discrimination is immoral or unethical is not only suspect, it's clearly foolhardy. China is an enemy to everyone who is not China, they aren't even subtle about this. China only cares about China, and will sabotage or interrupt deals and commit espionage in order to get ahead. Anyone who owes allegiance to China is not a friend of the West, full stop. The West and the entities operating in it owe no benefit of the doubt or benefit at all towards anyone who has allegiance to China. China holds no such ridiculous notion as that they shouldn't discriminate based on allegiance, they make it clear you are either theirs or you are unwelcome.
Note, I am also /not/ saying that China is necessarily doing anything immoral within their own framework here, I am simply observing that they are not, and have not been, any friend to the West, and they are clearly at this point our enemy. Just because they are our enemy does not mean that their behaviors aren't rational from their perspective or point of view and don't align with their own moral systems. We don't owe them any regard or benefit of the doubt however, as they are our enemy, and it's just as much not immoral for us to uphold ourselves against our enemies.
> It's the literal definition of prejudice. Very illiberal.
You and I have different definitions of prejudice and what it means to be Liberal. My definition of prejudice matches what's in the dictionary:
noun
1. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions.
2. An adverse judgment or opinion formed unfairly or without knowledge of the facts.
3. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular social group, such as a race or the adherents of a religion.
Acting to protect yourself from an enemy and its nationals is not unreasonable, based on any unfairness, based on lack of knowledge of the facts, nor is it irrational, therefore the preconditions of prejudice aren't present. When you have a clear, rational, open basis for discrimination, it's not prejudicial, it's simply prudent.
Your entire argument is based off the propagandized idea that "China is our mortal enemy".
Should we cut off all tourism/business travel between China and the Wests? Cease all commercial activities? Declare war? Wait we should ask China to close the 9000 Starbucks in their country first.
Your opinion, while fairly popular amongst propagandized Americans, is not supported by hard facts..
And your argument of "all Chinese nationals could be spies means all Chinese nationals are working as spies" is absolutely illogical.
I don't think China is our mortal enemy or that we should formally declare war. Nowhere in my comments do I make any of the spurious statements you're trying to attribute to me. However, it is clear that China /is/ our enemy, "mortal" though they may not be (currently). China exists for China, and I personally hold no animus towards China for that, but I am also not so much of a fool that I would willingly employ and inform my enemy of my secrets, regardless of whether I hold no ill will for their rational self-interest as a state.
It is possible, and logically consistent, to both recognize someone is your enemy and to have respect for their position and no ill regard for their existence. It is possible, and logically consistent, to have respect for someone's position and yet identify the foolishness of providing them employment, succor, or otherwise helping them to achieve their aims, aims that are to your own detriment. Just as China is primarily acting out of rational self-interest, so too should the West. The West is far too willing to cut off its own toes just to signal some virtue which has no bearing or relation to reality. Reality always wins, and I'm merely recognizing reality.
And what is peace, if not being willing to agree to disagree? I disagree with China's aims, but agree that their aims are beneficial to China. I am not obligated to assist them in their aims, nor does refusing to do so obligate me to go to war with them. Nor does it obligate anyone else in the West to assist them or to battle them, we can merely refuse to help those who are openly our enemies and let them go their own way.
> it is clear that China /is/ our enemy. I personally hold no animus towards China...inform my enemy...recognize someone is your enemy...
Firstly, if you are so obsessed with finding enemies everywhere, then you do hold animus.
Second, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. The US missed out on 5G technology because a foreign researcher wasn't granted a green card and sold his research to Chinese companies instead. Way to go, undermining the very foundation of your success.
I think you need to realise that, outside of the west, for example in India, US is not trusted a whole lot more than China is. The allegations of threat to national security against Huawei seem suspiciously well timed, they appeared just as Huawei came out with 5G tech. To many nations this looks like economic warfare, and resorting to sanctions simply to secure markets.
You need to accept the fact that China is here to stay, and third nations are going to enjoy playing China and US off against each other, and see who can offer them better deal.
I don't think your response is in good faith, since you are responding to a comment where I explicitly say that I have made no reference to where someone is born, only to their allegiance.
Do you not understand what the term "national" means? A significant number of US nationals were not born here, being born here is not a prerequisite to be a national. While the same is largely not true for China, there are many people born in China who are no longer Chinese nationals because they have renounced their citizenship as part of immigrating and naturalizing elsewhere. The statement I made is not about ethnicity or birthplace, it's about allegiance. /Every/ citizen of China is required by Chinese law to participate in espionage either directly or indirectly as requested, and they are requested, the evidence is insurmountable.
> there are many people born in China who are no longer Chinese nationals because they have renounced their citizenship as part of immigrating and naturalizing elsewhere.
Do tell, how does one go about naturalizing elsewhere?
In the country I live in, it typically takes over ten years and requires establishing a support system in said country first (employment, social connection, etc).
If you ban everyone from a country from immigrating (which is exactly what you're proposing for all birthright citizenship countries), you prevent naturalization from even being a possibility.
You claiming I'm arguing in bad faith while ignoring the Titanic sinking your argument did give me a chuckle though, I grant you that.
I don't think yours's is, you pretend to draw a difference where no practical distinction exists.
For 95% of people worldwide, birthplace IS nationality - you get 1 by birth, and only have 1. You can't renounce it, that would make you illegal alien.
If you put up a corporate email "specifically Chinese citizens will get no promotions this year" you will have immediate lawsuits on your hands, it is discriminatory.
Instead you should own up to to the fact that your position is illiberal, and provide serious evidence that the threat is so great, that liberal principles must be abandoned. Of course that is much tougher and less palatable argument to make.
It's amusing that every alternative comment is the guy expressly saying he's talking about nationality held and who they hold allegiance to, and every response is a misunderstanding.
This is normal stuff. You can even lose your US dual citizenship if you serve in another nation's armed forces.
I actually pasted the sequence into ChatGPT and it seems to comprehend him easier than people responding to him. It is always interesting when the Turing test is failed because the bot is too smart and capable of comprehension.
Like many countries, China has a policy of jus soli. Most countries will not allow you to renounce citizenship should it leave you stateless. So, until you get another citizenship, which is typically a multi year to decades long process, you don't really have a say as to what your 'nationality' is.
It's not like an infant can reasonably consent to be given citizenship, or that they would even have the option if they could.
The OPs metric for allegiance is nationality, which itself is determined by where you were born rather than any actual beliefs or practices. It's disingenuous at best.
Just because the problem is diffuse and distant for you now, does not mean it is not your problem. If we all fail to treat it as the problem, it will become concentrated and local here also. (but sure, right now, it's more convenient to ignore it and party)
It seems awfully convenient that when western corporations were cutting jobs and outsourcing to China we were told to take one for the team capitalism. Same concerns about human rights in China existed.
And now when cheaper Chinese cars/5G/etc threaten profits, we are again told to take one for the team.
I don’t think we get to party, looks a bit like a racket
I completely agree — the entire concept of "manufacturing isn't important, outsource it to the cheapest poor countries" is one of the most insane and fundamentally stupid strategic failures in history.
While the west earned a few year's worth of higher profits by outsourcing their entire manufacturing base, intellectual property advantage, and middle class lifestyle to China, China created a strategic dependency, modernized military, and massive ability to backdoor and spy on it's adversaries, as well as global advantage in key markets.
Yes, that was extremely costly for the western working and middle class, and as you point out, even stupidly short-sighted for the capital class.
However, reversing that and bringing key manufacturing back to the democratic allies (US, EU, Japan, SK, AUS, etc.) will massively benefit workers who will no longer be competing with China's cheap labor. So, I'm not sure how this is 'taking one for the team'?
(And yes, the strategic concept that open trade and info flow will naturally bring democracy, based on the post-WWII experience of EU and Japan rebuilding efforts, massively failed; all it did was empower the dictators in CCP and RU. So, the human rights issues for Chinese workers still exists, but they got a couple decades of improved economics. Too bad we can't just depose China's and Russia's leadership and bring real progress,, but if we don't preserve our own democracy, we'll never be able to help anyone else).
> Talent plans can sometimes foster legitimate sharing and collaboration as part of an appropriate business arrangement or research exchange, but this is not the norm.
> Instead, talent plans usually involve undisclosed and illegal transfers of information, technology, or intellectual property that are one-way and detrimental to U.S. institutions.
Liberal principles dropped at the first sign of trouble?