[helen___keller]

The article is definitely making an emotional appeal here. For the numbers supporting it I recommend looking at the criticism section of the Wikipedia article on the China Initiative https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Initiative and you’ll find some appalling figures (like 50% dropped charges on academics so far, which indicates feds are more than willing to bring make arrests and bring charges when they don’t even have a strong case for their allegations, ie witch-hunts against Chinese academics)

> They are not necessarily "spies", nor were they commonly accused of being "spies".

The charges don’t indicate they are spies, but if you read the indictments of e.g. Gang Cheng, it repeatedly accuses him of being loyal to China, which is all but calling him a spy

> The wide-ranging of recruiting of U.S. academics by the Chinese government is no secret at all. It is self-evident by the Thousand Talents Plan. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Talents_Plan ).

Indeed, academics have been ensnared by political bullshit. The way I call it is China offered the carrot and USA offered the stick. If you want to work with China, the Chinese government will be more than happy to reward you; if you are caught working with China, USG will be more than happy to throw you into prison and try to ruin your life (even without enough evidence to convict, as in at least half of this cases)

Frankly, I wish I could say we were winning the battle over academia using free speech and anti-authoritarianism, but it appears being anti-China is the best we can do

[temp8964]

"we were winning the battle". I am not sure who is "we" here and what "winning" means. Yes, there is a perspective that Chinese Americans should not be discriminated because of what the Chinese government is doing and what some of the Chinese Americans are doing. But, please stop kidding ourselves that this is the only perspective of the story.

A larger battle does exist is that the authoritarian Chinese government is exploiting our open society and stealing technology and business secretes through using mainly Chinese Americans who want to make financial gains. And we are NOT winning this battle.

And the unfortunate truth is that the authoritarian Chinese government benefits from both battles. If we let them use Chinese Americans to steal technology and business, they win. If we over-react, they win too.

[helen___keller]

> “we were winning the battle". I am not sure who is "we" here and what "winning" means.

We = the west (or USA specifically if you prefer)

Winning = attracting and retaining the loyalties of intellectual talent

> A larger battle does exist is that the authoritarian Chinese government is exploiting our open society and stealing technology and business secretes

This is one chapter in the story. China experienced heavy brain drain, especially from the 90s to the aughts. espionage and theft of western intellectual property was essentially state-sanctioned because Chinas intellectual power couldn’t match the west’s.

It’s now the 2020s. China wants to become the intellectual powerhouse of the world and wants to bring back all their brilliant scientists who left the homeland to make lives in the west.

The battle is over which country will be the one struggling to retain intellectual talent in the next 1, 2, 3 decades. Hopefully we recognize this now, not when we learn 北大 is the top reach school for American high school class of 20xx

[temp8964]

Of course there is a long term perspective of the battle. However, the short term battle also matters. The authoritarian CCP government has being winning the short term battle and this helps them becoming a new superpower, and this is defining the history of the next couple decades.

[helen___keller]

Jailing a bunch of Chinese researchers, and then later dropping charges, is not helping us on that front

If the government wants to prosecute spies and traitors, they shouldn’t cast a wide net and bring in a bunch of innocents too. We’re not supposed to be the side that jails academics on made up charges.