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This doesn’t make sense. > On the mainland if you are a leading expert in this field or that, or belong to specific establishments (such as public security or

This doesn’t make sense. > On the mainland if you are a leading expert in this field or that, or belong to specific establishments (such as public security or state security) you cannot exit the country without permission from higher up the food chain. That alone will be enough to deter people from moving to China for even 10x salary. Getting locked into an insane Han-supremacy regime is walking into the dragon’s mouth with a torch. Intellectuals get attracted to more than just money. Especially industry experts.

narrator 6y ago
Also, if you are a billionaire the government can take everything away from that person in the blink of an eye if decides it doesn't like what that person says. In the west there are far more protections and due process rights.
- AsyncAwait 6y ago
  If you're a billionaire, yes. If you're a person of color of not so great means, education etc. in the U.S. from a somewhat infamous area like Chicago, am not so sure. Just see the ongoing protests right now.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - drozycki 6y ago
    The intersection between South side Chicago resident and semiconductor expert is vanishingly small. Those who grow up in a disaffected part of the US and go on to study EE or CS do so through a US college opportunity which will funnel them into a US semiconductor job where they will be treated better than the treatment dark skinned people get in China. It’s common for restaurants in major Chinese cities to have “No Black” signs in their windows as a “COVID measure”, for example. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimination-against-africans https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimin...
    - justicezyx 6y ago
      The linked article has no pictures of the sign. I have friends living in Shenzhen, I asked them, and they said they never saw such signs. It could be that they are visiting different groups of restaurants or hotels etc.
      - heavyset_go 6y ago
        If you had bothered to read the article, not only would you have seen the linked image and video[1], you'd have also read the tomes of evidence that goes against your anecdote. [1] https://twitter.com/BlackLivityCN/status/1249011762638266374 https://twitter.com/BlackLivityCN/status/1249011762638266374
    - AsyncAwait 6y ago
      > Those who grow up in a disaffected part of the US and go on to study EE or CS do so through a US college opportunity which will funnel them into a US semiconductor job The probability of that happening is not so big considering people from such areas tend to have low quality schools around them, which tends to mean low test scores, maybe even involvement with the "justice" system, no real opportunity to land a semiconductor job. What you said sounds nice, but I doubt happens much in practice.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  In China, even a billionaire can be crushed by the state - for corruption, for being a power rival or for speaking out against state policy. In the US, a certain level of person has nearly carte blanche against scandal, against being accused of crimes or pursuing pathological policy positions. Of course, in the US, a small person's life can be snuffed out if they annoy the wrong cop and their life can be made miserable if they go up against the justice system or other powerful forces. I'm sure what how well the two system play against each other on the world stage at this point.
  - tomp 6y ago
    Oh come on man (woman?), this comment is completely disingenuous. You're comparing 2 completely different things. Is US / the West fair? Not by a long shot. Tons of shitty stuff happening, from George Floyd, to Harvey Weinstein, to Jeffrey Epstein, to Julian Assange. But at least we know about them. But compared to China? You won't even hear about the "small person's life". I'm sure life in China can be great, unless you're Muslim, or Buddhist / Tibetan, or Falun Gong, or Canadian, or ... I don't know about you, but for me, there's no question which of these systems I'd prefer to live under. Even if I were black! (Notify me when China gets a black president.)
    - azinman2 6y ago
      That might be true for you, but that clearly isn't true for everyone. I know people in HK (mostly elderly) who are fine with China coming and taking over. They see security and wealth.
      - kilroy_jones 6y ago
        Most of those people in HK who are fine with it already have deep connections with the Mainland and want to maintain those. They are a small fraction of the population. It's also fairly short-sighted and selfish thinking in my mind to sell the off the rights of the younger generation so they can keep their assets and businesses safe. In the US we have been selling off our privacy and ability to affect public policy through our leaders for much the same reasons, ie short-term gains for the few. Difference is we gave it voluntarily.
- pishpash 6y ago
  Like you are a billionaire. In the West, as anywhere, the poor people have little due process rights in practice, and the rich depend far more on power than process for protection. The government has many "legal" means to "take everything away" from someone, including taking away their means of doing business or their access to power, running stories to defame them, using threats of tax issues, fraud, sexual crimes, national security violation, and other means of control. Sound familiar? If you think human nature is different because there is some scrap of paper from two hundred years ago you may be sorely disappointed when trying to redeem on your protections and rights, which it sounds like you've never had to do. This, mind you, is the same scrap of paper that claims all men are created equal.
- tasogare 6y ago
  > In the west there are far more protections and due process rights. Not necessarily. You could also lose your job and get totally screwed professionally if you speak against the last political trend. University professors could for instance lose a job over a pronoun matter. Sharing a memo have also been proven risky. The actors are different (state in one case, mob and PC in the other) but the end result can be pretty similar.
  - igorkraw 6y ago
    Dude, this is very ingenious. If people get "cancelled", they don't have to fear for their lives, if they are white men they generally can find a job quite easily (maybe not the same one but eh) and there is enough diversity of opinion that they will have defenders like you in public fora. Try organising a Tiananmn protest, or criticising the Uyghur internment camps within China
abrowne 6y ago
It would be less a deterrence for someone from Taiwan, with linguistic, cultural and maybe family connections to China than it would be for someone with no connection to the Sinosphere. And it's not like they're getting locked into Belgium. (I like Belgium! But it's a small place compared with China.)
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  I personally know people in a large semiconductor company in China that moved to Vietnam having been born there with a family and 2 kids. Which is kind of insane to think about. I don’t know them too well otherwise I’d ask them of their reasons for moving permanently out of China. Just that I have a sample size of 1, so take it with a grain of salt.
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    Vietnam right now seems like South China ~15 years ago (from an outside perspective), but with way more hope of not turning into a greater dystopian nightmare. I can imagine feeling very lucky to be able to do what these people you're talking about have done.
- mellow2020 6y ago
  ANY place one is in is exactly as small as the collar around one's neck is tight. > [..] any writer who adopts the totalitarian outlook, who finds excuses for persecution and the falsification of reality, thereby destroys himself as a writer. There is no way out of this. No tirades against ‘individualism’ and the ‘ivory tower’, no pious platitudes to the effect that ‘true individuality is only attained through identification with the community’, can get over the fact that a bought mind is a spoiled mind. Unless spontaneity enters at some point or another, literary creation is impossible, and language itself becomes something totally different from what it is now, we may learn to separate literary creation from intellectual honesty. At present we know only that the imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity. Any writer or journalist who denies that fact — and nearly all the current praise of the Soviet Union contains or implies such a denial — is, in effect, demanding his own destruction. -- George Orwell, "The Prevention of Literature" This is just as true for scientists. Bought, caged, too addicted to harmony with peers -- all these and more have the same result. If you cannot even say that the Tiananmen Square massacre happened, if there is an arbitrary set of facts you are even allowed to acknowledge, determined basically by brownshirts through violence, you may be doing something, but you're not being a fully fledged scientists anymore than an elephant could be found in a small fridge. I don't even need to look at the person, the circumstances are fully sufficient for this determination.
actuator 6y ago
Some intellectuals would be attracted to principles which aren't there in PRC and might not go but not everyone. Like OP mentioned, for some creating an impact at an scale that is possible inside China might be attractive enough. Also, as long as you toe the CCP line I doubt they would be making life difficult for you. At worst, you will be free to travel within China and possibly live a very comfortable life there. I can totally see mainland Chinese companies poaching talent(specially overseas Chinese) in areas they lack by giving very good opportunities. The way China has developed and the growth potential still there, I can totally see Chinese expats moving back there.
- drozycki 6y ago
  The problem is that you can’t trust any CCP promise when there is no rule of law. What’s to stop them from paying you less than you earned abroad and simply denying you an exit visa once you arrive? They would probably treat you well at first so that you can tell your friends still overseas that the deal is good. But once they have their talent then they don’t have a reason to keep treating you like a king.
teknologist 6y ago
> Getting locked into an insane Han-supremacy regime is walking into the dragon’s mouth with a torch. I think he's referring to Han people studying/working overseas returning to their ethno-state. I can't imagine many non-Chinese would move to China instead of choosing to live in a fairer, rule of law Western democracy where the work is often better paid.
- dirtyid 6y ago
  The reality is the opposite, western expats in China get paid much more and are afforded much greater legal latitude. They get paid like kings and mostly live like kings. Make money in China and retire elsewhere has been going on since the 90s. It's how China developed with western expertise.
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    > They get paid like kings and mostly live like kings. Careful with present tense, things have taken a stark turn for the worse in terms of the day-to-day reality of western foreigners in China, and it already was not spectacular (minders checking in on your domicile every couple weeks or month, basically zero standing in legal disputes including routine contract disputes).
    - dirtyid 6y ago
      TBH, these are exceedingly fringe scenarios that doesn't affect majority of expats living in China, i.e. certain motorcycle vloggers who got on the government shitlist. For the purpose of this article, if you're a sought after silicon engineer, you'll essentially have diplomatic immunity. China is going ham courting foreign talent in strategic field like 3x salary for entry level position, building churches for Korean silicon engineers. That said, things have recognizably declined for segments of expats in China in the last 10 years, Xi's policies is one component, but another driver is local elites have usurped expats at the top of the social hierarchy, plus you have a lot more bitter failed expats. Compared to 15-20 years ago when the expat population were almost exclusively professionals from multinationals instead of English teachers / losers back home. Sure, the fun, unregulated, drink with local corrupt official days are over. But if you're a professional who just want to enjoy a big paycheck and Chinese culture, you'll be fine. The company will take care of you.

narrator 6y ago

Also, if you are a billionaire the government can take everything away from that person in the blink of an eye if decides it doesn't like what that person says. In the west there are far more protections and due process rights.

AsyncAwait 6y ago
If you're a billionaire, yes. If you're a person of color of not so great means, education etc. in the U.S. from a somewhat infamous area like Chicago, am not so sure. Just see the ongoing protests right now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- drozycki 6y ago
  The intersection between South side Chicago resident and semiconductor expert is vanishingly small. Those who grow up in a disaffected part of the US and go on to study EE or CS do so through a US college opportunity which will funnel them into a US semiconductor job where they will be treated better than the treatment dark skinned people get in China. It’s common for restaurants in major Chinese cities to have “No Black” signs in their windows as a “COVID measure”, for example. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimination-against-africans https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/china-covid-19-discrimin...
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    The linked article has no pictures of the sign. I have friends living in Shenzhen, I asked them, and they said they never saw such signs. It could be that they are visiting different groups of restaurants or hotels etc.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      If you had bothered to read the article, not only would you have seen the linked image and video[1], you'd have also read the tomes of evidence that goes against your anecdote. [1] https://twitter.com/BlackLivityCN/status/1249011762638266374 https://twitter.com/BlackLivityCN/status/1249011762638266374
  - AsyncAwait 6y ago
    > Those who grow up in a disaffected part of the US and go on to study EE or CS do so through a US college opportunity which will funnel them into a US semiconductor job The probability of that happening is not so big considering people from such areas tend to have low quality schools around them, which tends to mean low test scores, maybe even involvement with the "justice" system, no real opportunity to land a semiconductor job. What you said sounds nice, but I doubt happens much in practice.
joe_the_user 6y ago
In China, even a billionaire can be crushed by the state - for corruption, for being a power rival or for speaking out against state policy. In the US, a certain level of person has nearly carte blanche against scandal, against being accused of crimes or pursuing pathological policy positions. Of course, in the US, a small person's life can be snuffed out if they annoy the wrong cop and their life can be made miserable if they go up against the justice system or other powerful forces. I'm sure what how well the two system play against each other on the world stage at this point.
- tomp 6y ago
  Oh come on man (woman?), this comment is completely disingenuous. You're comparing 2 completely different things. Is US / the West fair? Not by a long shot. Tons of shitty stuff happening, from George Floyd, to Harvey Weinstein, to Jeffrey Epstein, to Julian Assange. But at least we know about them. But compared to China? You won't even hear about the "small person's life". I'm sure life in China can be great, unless you're Muslim, or Buddhist / Tibetan, or Falun Gong, or Canadian, or ... I don't know about you, but for me, there's no question which of these systems I'd prefer to live under. Even if I were black! (Notify me when China gets a black president.)
  - azinman2 6y ago
    That might be true for you, but that clearly isn't true for everyone. I know people in HK (mostly elderly) who are fine with China coming and taking over. They see security and wealth.
    - kilroy_jones 6y ago
      Most of those people in HK who are fine with it already have deep connections with the Mainland and want to maintain those. They are a small fraction of the population. It's also fairly short-sighted and selfish thinking in my mind to sell the off the rights of the younger generation so they can keep their assets and businesses safe. In the US we have been selling off our privacy and ability to affect public policy through our leaders for much the same reasons, ie short-term gains for the few. Difference is we gave it voluntarily.
pishpash 6y ago
Like you are a billionaire. In the West, as anywhere, the poor people have little due process rights in practice, and the rich depend far more on power than process for protection. The government has many "legal" means to "take everything away" from someone, including taking away their means of doing business or their access to power, running stories to defame them, using threats of tax issues, fraud, sexual crimes, national security violation, and other means of control. Sound familiar? If you think human nature is different because there is some scrap of paper from two hundred years ago you may be sorely disappointed when trying to redeem on your protections and rights, which it sounds like you've never had to do. This, mind you, is the same scrap of paper that claims all men are created equal.
tasogare 6y ago
> In the west there are far more protections and due process rights. Not necessarily. You could also lose your job and get totally screwed professionally if you speak against the last political trend. University professors could for instance lose a job over a pronoun matter. Sharing a memo have also been proven risky. The actors are different (state in one case, mob and PC in the other) but the end result can be pretty similar.
- igorkraw 6y ago
  Dude, this is very ingenious. If people get "cancelled", they don't have to fear for their lives, if they are white men they generally can find a job quite easily (maybe not the same one but eh) and there is enough diversity of opinion that they will have defenders like you in public fora. Try organising a Tiananmn protest, or criticising the Uyghur internment camps within China

abrowne 6y ago

It would be less a deterrence for someone from Taiwan, with linguistic, cultural and maybe family connections to China than it would be for someone with no connection to the Sinosphere. And it's not like they're getting locked into Belgium. (I like Belgium! But it's a small place compared with China.)

systemvoltage 6y ago
I personally know people in a large semiconductor company in China that moved to Vietnam having been born there with a family and 2 kids. Which is kind of insane to think about. I don’t know them too well otherwise I’d ask them of their reasons for moving permanently out of China. Just that I have a sample size of 1, so take it with a grain of salt.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  Vietnam right now seems like South China ~15 years ago (from an outside perspective), but with way more hope of not turning into a greater dystopian nightmare. I can imagine feeling very lucky to be able to do what these people you're talking about have done.
mellow2020 6y ago
ANY place one is in is exactly as small as the collar around one's neck is tight. > [..] any writer who adopts the totalitarian outlook, who finds excuses for persecution and the falsification of reality, thereby destroys himself as a writer. There is no way out of this. No tirades against ‘individualism’ and the ‘ivory tower’, no pious platitudes to the effect that ‘true individuality is only attained through identification with the community’, can get over the fact that a bought mind is a spoiled mind. Unless spontaneity enters at some point or another, literary creation is impossible, and language itself becomes something totally different from what it is now, we may learn to separate literary creation from intellectual honesty. At present we know only that the imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity. Any writer or journalist who denies that fact — and nearly all the current praise of the Soviet Union contains or implies such a denial — is, in effect, demanding his own destruction. -- George Orwell, "The Prevention of Literature" This is just as true for scientists. Bought, caged, too addicted to harmony with peers -- all these and more have the same result. If you cannot even say that the Tiananmen Square massacre happened, if there is an arbitrary set of facts you are even allowed to acknowledge, determined basically by brownshirts through violence, you may be doing something, but you're not being a fully fledged scientists anymore than an elephant could be found in a small fridge. I don't even need to look at the person, the circumstances are fully sufficient for this determination.

actuator 6y ago

Some intellectuals would be attracted to principles which aren't there in PRC and might not go but not everyone. Like OP mentioned, for some creating an impact at an scale that is possible inside China might be attractive enough. Also, as long as you toe the CCP line I doubt they would be making life difficult for you. At worst, you will be free to travel within China and possibly live a very comfortable life there. I can totally see mainland Chinese companies poaching talent(specially overseas Chinese) in areas they lack by giving very good opportunities. The way China has developed and the growth potential still there, I can totally see Chinese expats moving back there.

drozycki 6y ago
The problem is that you can’t trust any CCP promise when there is no rule of law. What’s to stop them from paying you less than you earned abroad and simply denying you an exit visa once you arrive? They would probably treat you well at first so that you can tell your friends still overseas that the deal is good. But once they have their talent then they don’t have a reason to keep treating you like a king.

teknologist 6y ago

> Getting locked into an insane Han-supremacy regime is walking into the dragon’s mouth with a torch. I think he's referring to Han people studying/working overseas returning to their ethno-state. I can't imagine many non-Chinese would move to China instead of choosing to live in a fairer, rule of law Western democracy where the work is often better paid.

dirtyid 6y ago
The reality is the opposite, western expats in China get paid much more and are afforded much greater legal latitude. They get paid like kings and mostly live like kings. Make money in China and retire elsewhere has been going on since the 90s. It's how China developed with western expertise.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  > They get paid like kings and mostly live like kings. Careful with present tense, things have taken a stark turn for the worse in terms of the day-to-day reality of western foreigners in China, and it already was not spectacular (minders checking in on your domicile every couple weeks or month, basically zero standing in legal disputes including routine contract disputes).
  - dirtyid 6y ago
    TBH, these are exceedingly fringe scenarios that doesn't affect majority of expats living in China, i.e. certain motorcycle vloggers who got on the government shitlist. For the purpose of this article, if you're a sought after silicon engineer, you'll essentially have diplomatic immunity. China is going ham courting foreign talent in strategic field like 3x salary for entry level position, building churches for Korean silicon engineers. That said, things have recognizably declined for segments of expats in China in the last 10 years, Xi's policies is one component, but another driver is local elites have usurped expats at the top of the social hierarchy, plus you have a lot more bitter failed expats. Compared to 15-20 years ago when the expat population were almost exclusively professionals from multinationals instead of English teachers / losers back home. Sure, the fun, unregulated, drink with local corrupt official days are over. But if you're a professional who just want to enjoy a big paycheck and Chinese culture, you'll be fine. The company will take care of you.