[jaggednad]

From a purely self-interested perspective, this is the dumbest thing the US could possibly do. There are talented people who want to leave China and come study and work in the US. We are basically stealing China’s best minds. Now we’re telling them they can’t come and shipping them back? I don’t think we should have conflict with China, but, if you are looking for conflict with China, sending brilliant minds back to them is so stupid that it’s almost unimaginable

[beebmam]

Are you seriously saying that the children of the wealthiest families in China are "China's best minds"? Please, show me some evidence for this egregious claim.

There is no such thing as modern Chinese meritocracy.

[Barrin92]

>Are you seriously saying that the children of the wealthiest families in China are "China's best minds"?

As we've seen with the recent scandals (and we also knew before), the wealthiest American attendees are hardly America's best minds either.

Don't think this is a problem that only applies to foreign students. If you want to remove wealth advantages for top tier universities I'm all for it, but it's a bad club to use in this debate.

[asdf21]

Don't presume a few exceptions in America meritocracy (who drastically overpaid and had to jump through tons of hoops to cheat the system) compare to what is the norm internationally.

[markchen90]

The article discusses effects on doctoral students, not masters or undergrads. STEM PhD programs at top schools are a lot less pay-to-play.

[lsc]

>Are you seriously saying that the children of the wealthiest families in China are "China's best minds"? Please, show me some evidence for this egregious claim.

I've been in programming and systems administration my whole working life, and I've been working in departments that are about half foreign born for most of that time. It's always a kinda weird cultural clash at first, as I look and sound, uh, a little bit midwestern; I've never left the country, and I have zero formal education and come from a family I'd call middle class (outside the bay area middle class) And then you get these very cosmopolitan foreign born people who almost always have advanced degrees working alongside me.

My impression is pretty different from yours. My impression is that, yeah, a lot of these people were raised rich and powerful by the standards of where they came from, and many have the social defects you see in Americans who had serving staff as children. But... generally speaking? they meet or exceed the same technical standards everyone else does for the job. I mean, interviewing is hard, and sometimes they get one that isn't any good, but that's true of all people of all national origins. interviewing is hard, and you make mistakes in both directions, and have to correct later.

Now, I didn't go to school; I don't know if those that aren't any good get failed out in school, or if they don't pass the interview... but I will stand by my statement that if you put in the effort to understand the accents, these foreign students aren't worse than US born candidates. And even if we're just talking about communication, foreign born people I've worked with who were educated at US schools all wrote better than the average US-born person in the same role. I assume that was something the US schools either filtered on or taught well.

I'm just saying; my experience is that these people, one way or another, got themselves some serious education and passed a fairly high intelligence bar, too. There's no way that these are China's minds with the most potential, but they might be among China's best educated minds, and that ain't nothin'

(As an aside, I certainly agree that you overlook a lot of good people if the first step in your filtering process is "has wealthy parents." both China and the US has serious problems with wasting good minds that happen to be born to parents who aren't wealthy. That this has been true for all of history doesn't excuse the truth.)

[inflatableDodo]

>There is no such thing as modern Chinese meritocracy.

Is closer to then original coinage than you might think. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/792606.The_Rise_of_the_M...

[hyperbovine]

Important to distinguish between undergrad and graduate here. The "rich kids from China" phenomenon is mainly about undergraduates doing 4-year degrees. This article suggests that Trump wants to crack down on Chinese graduate students, where admission is much more merit based. If true, this is a terrible idea.

[beebmam]

Fair enough, good point.

[freeflight]

It's not like the situation in the US is that different [0], but apparently these days people have very short memories.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_briber...

[ulfw]

Neither is there an American one.

Wealthy Americans can and have bought their way into Harvard, Stanford et. al. left and right.

[saberience]

So, this is anecdotal... but I worked for 5.5 years at a top American tech company, don't want to name names here. But about 50% of our data scientists were Chinese grad students taken after they finished their Masters or PhDs.

You can say what you like about "best minds" but I can assure you there are some seriously talented Chinese youth coming to the US for grad school and then ending up at top American companies and working jobs where high intelligence and ability is required. I was friends with many of said graduate students and many of them expressed fear and sadness about the Trump Visa situation and none of them wanted to go back to China.

[Salgat]

You're absolutely right. China is desperately fighting brain drain and here we are giving them a helping hand.

[jtanderson]

Almost makes me wonder if it's deliberate, as in some quid pro quo agreed upon, implied, or otherwise, between the US and Chinese presidents. Though what the US gets out of it is unclear, I wouldn't be shocked.

[inflatableDodo]

Trump wants people to stop buying services from AT&T, as of yesterday;

>"I believe that if people stoped[sic] using or subscribing to @ATT, they would be forced to make big changes at @CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway. It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News! Why wouldn’t they act. When the World watches @CNN, it gets a false picture of USA. Sad!"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2019

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/11354990026261544...

What the US gets out of that is also unclear.

I guess you could just take at face value this proposition by the US President that boycotting AT&T to enforce large changes in the editorial policy of CNN is something that is good for the US. But I think that you would also have to be very careful not to think about it very hard.

[freeflight]

> What the US gets out of that is also unclear.

It gets the media landscape in-line with the administration: "Don't you dare to report badly about me or I will make you pay for it.", at least it attempts to.

[potatofarmer45]

The question, is these bright minds never spent 10 years at MIT or Harvard, and instead spent it at Peking University, would be they be of the same caliber?

[ta1234567890]

As someone who went to the number one school in a 3rd world country and one the top universities in the US, I'd say those people would be of the same or better technical or academic caliber. Although they will most definitely not have the same connections or opportunities afterwards (which is where the most value at elite schools is).

[j7ake]

It's harder to get into the top university in China than at MIT and Harvard. To think otherwise suggests a myopic view of the world.

Corollary: it's more prestigious to have done your bachelor's education at Tsinghua University than at MIT or Harvard. The top students in China do their Bachelor's degree in China. The ones who don't get into the top universities and have money are sent overseas.

[ulfw]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsinghua_University

Tsinghua in Beijing is one of the world's foremost universities. A ton of Chinese leaders and also two Nobel laureates come from there.

[zwaps]

Not that it isn't a good university, I mean I hear decent things, but two Nobel laureates is really not that much for a top university. Many local European universities have more.

[Jommi]

How is it not a good university? Is it solely measured on Nobel Laureates?

[zwaps]

Read again.

[ajmurmann]

Probably not. However, does it matter? If we take some of the best and brightest from China and make them even better, why would it matter if they'd otherwise be still some of China's best and brightest but less well trained? Regardless the US wins and China loses very talented people.

[danielscrubs]

Probably not? Sounds like someone hasn’t mingled with other countries elites. Yikes. If I’m allowed to sterotype, I’d get the russian math major and the American business major for sales, a Swedish HR and some Polish coders.

[toomanyrichies]

> does it matter?

It matters if they return to China with their American education and:

-engage in nation-state attacks on behalf of the PLA [1], or

-build facial-recognition software to further repress the Uyghur community [2], or

-contribute to the "social credit" system which makes it next-to-impossible for everyday Chinese to express anything other than unvarnished support of the ruling party [3], or

-eavesdrop on advocates for democracy in Hong Kong [4], or

-build advanced weapons systems that are then installed on newly-constructed islands in the South China Sea [5], or

-conduct industrial espionage on behalf of Chinese companies with key government contacts or PLA-connected C-level execs [6], or

-participate in advanced research projects like quantum satellites which could give China a persistent strategic advantage against the NSA [7], or

-install facial recognition technology in primary-school and middle-school classrooms to enhance indoctrination methods at an earlier age [8], or

-any other number of future scenarios we haven't even discussed.

I'm not saying every overseas Chinese student fits this description. While living in Shanghai for almost 6 years, I encountered quite a few that were open to democratic ideals and skeptical of their government's propaganda. However, there is also a non-trivial amount of nationalism among everyday Chinese, and the CCP is capable of directing it against the US anytime it sees fit, through its monopoly of mainland media outlets (and increasingly, non-mainland ones as well) [9].

I don't pretend to have a solution to this problem. But I think it may be short-sighted to expect Chinese students to be wooed by the wonders of democracy after a short-term study-abroad program in a country whose democracy is flawed at best.

------------

Sources:

[1] https://www.cbronline.com/what-is/what-is-pla-unit-61398-and...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/apr/11/china-hi-tech-w...

[3] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-p...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_China#Hon...

[5] https://futurism.com/the-byte/australia-chinese-lasers-milit...

[6] https://www.globaldots.com/chinese-spying-chips-found-hidden...

[7] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/china-s-quantum-sate...

[8] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-school-facial-recognit...

[9] https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-reports/speak-no-evi...

[kevin_thibedeau]

Every one of your scenarios has an American analog. You're basically reading off the script of the two minutes hate.

[toomanyrichies]

Not sure what “two minutes hate” refers to, but whether there is an American analog or not is irrelevant. Or at least, it’s irrelevant from the perspective of the American foreign policy officials who craft the student visa rules which we’re discussing.

[inflatableDodo]

>"Not sure what “two minutes hate” refers to"

When discussing foreign policy officials and visa rules, Orwell is probably going to come up fairly regularly as a common point of reference. Is from the book 1984.

[armenarmen]

> Not sure what “two minutes hate” refers to

1984

[inflatableDodo]

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

[ninkendo]

What’s the American analog of the social credit system?

[freeflight]

Secretive terrorist watch lists managed by ML [0]

For a more overt manifestation, just take a look at how the US treats ex-convicts: Public shaming by releasing mug-shots, some states even revoking their right to vote among other rights, de-facto turning them into second-grade citizens for life.

[0] https://theintercept.com/2018/12/03/air-travel-surveillance-...

[toomanyrichies]

Thanks to the HN readers who defined "two minutes hate".

I think some readers of my original comment may be misunderstanding it. To clarify, I am happy to go into an equal level of detail about the many ills of American hegemony:

-False claims about WMD as a pretext for war against Iraq, resulting in an estimated 460,000 deaths [1]

-Four centuries of slave trade, which forced millions of people into bondage, resulted in a number of deaths ranging from 1.5 million to 5 million people, tore countless families apart, and continues to have socioeconomic consequences to this day, both in America and Africa. [2]

-The dropping of atomic bombs on Japan during WWII, which indiscriminately targeted civilians and killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 people in Nagasaki. [3]

-Countless examples of backing authoritarian rulers friendly to US interests and engaging in "regime change", including the 1953 Iran coup [4], Fulgencio Basista in Cuba [5], and currently supporting 73% of regimes classified as "dictatorships" by Freedom House. [6]

-The idea of "manifest destiny" [7] as a justification to lay claim to territory that was already occupied, resulting in the deaths of 80-98% of native peoples as the result of diseases like smallpox, as well as outright genocide. [8]

-American involvement in the Vietnam War, which killed between 1-4 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. [9]

-Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and so-called "black sites", where non-US citizens are held without trial and subject to human rights abuses. [10]

-Mass surveillance conducted by the US government, including on its own people, resulting in an unknowable number of civil liberties violations. [11]

I mention all of the above in order to (hopefully) establish the fact that I am not simply "reading off the script of the two minutes hate." Or if I am, at least I'm reading off both sides' scripts.

That said, my original point still stands. I obviously have no data on the percentage of visa applicants who plan to use their education for ill vs good. In fact, I'm even willing to stipulate that the vast majority of those applicants fall into the more well-intentioned category. However, _if_ (and this is a big if) the intention of a student visa applicant is to commit acts which (hopefully) we can all agree are antithetical to basic human rights, and _if_ an American education would make them relatively more effective at doing so, then we all have an interest in stopping them from succeeding. That is true regardless of whether they do so on behalf of the CCP, the US government, a private corporation, etc. And importantly, whether there are American analogues to China's actions has no bearing on this point. It's pure whatabout-ism, and is a distraction from the point at hand.

I'm emphatically _not_ advocating for the repeal of student visas for Chinese applicants (I personally think this is a bad idea overall). I'm simply responding to another reader's question, "does it matter (if visa applicants study in the US or elsewhere)?". The point I'm making is that it might matter very much, and that exposure to or immersion in American democracy is not a panacea, especially when that democracy has significant and chronic ills which prevent it from reaching its full potential.

---------

Sources

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War

2) https://www.un.org/en/events/africandescentdecade/slave-trad...

https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/mar/18...

3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...

4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh

5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista

6) https://truthout.org/articles/us-provides-military-assistanc...

7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples...

9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_the_United_States_in_t...

10) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/...

11) https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/privacy-and-su...

[mistermann]

This doesn't seem true, can you provide examples?

[simion314]

Or if the US values are really better the students would bring their home, I am not sure how this phenomena is called but about 300 years ago when wealthy students from Romania went to study in France and return caused a big cultural improvement.