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"If the moral principle here is that countries shouldn't try to draw scientific talent from other countries" I think even the most nationalist and hawkish memb
by jariel 7y ago
"If the moral principle here is that countries shouldn't try to draw scientific talent from other countries"
I think even the most nationalist and hawkish members of the elite/gov/administration fully understand the value of research and that it's international. The US missile and nuclear program were built by foreign, often formerly 'baddy' scientist after all.
At the same time, anything of strategic importance in China is tied to the state and therefore tied to all their other shifty activities.
The 'Red Scare' of the Cold War was based on very legitimate concerns, unfortunately, there were people who shouldn't have been dragged into the net caught up in it - and so this is the issue: how to act, where to draw the line, legal and moral legitimacy etc..
China speaks with one voice, the West speaks with a thousand voices (heads of state, research, government, military, NGO etc.) and they're playing a very aggressive game of 'divide and conquer' which warrants a ton of scrutiny.
Our job is to figure out how to counter the threat and to make tough decisions ... whilst minimizing damage, goodwill, and keeping an eye on some future where we all get along.
Unfortunately, I feel this tension may last a long time.
- knzhou 7y agoIsn't it a strange coincidence that all of America's enemies (the Axis, the USSR, now China) "spoke with one voice"? This is just the well-known outgroup homogeneity bias [0]. Everyone lives in a bubble. You don't hear about other groups' internal divisions, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. It's a subtle bias, but an insidious one. It has led to people reading my comments and thinking "His tone doesn't match up with the hysteria of the news article... so he must be a Communist party shill!" I wouldn't fare well in a second red scare; this is not a future to which I want to go. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
- jariel 7y ago? The 'Axis' definitely not 'speak with one voice' - nor did anyone ever use this term to apply to them. The term wasn't generally applied to the USSR either, although it's 'truthy' as their Politburo had immense central control over not just the USSR but Satelite states like Poland and E. Germany would could be given de-facto direct orders on many issues. But Xi Jinping is firmly in control: the depth and scope of information control, 7/24/375 monitoring of every citizen, absolute control over the political organs, military, finance, currency, finance - I think it's very rational to say there is 'one voice' in China. Xi Jinping may very well easily be the most powerful person in history. He has very long term ambitions for China, and his tactics are evidence of a pretty hardcore Realpolitik. Though most of it is non-threatening, much of it is, and there's obviously going to be a response.