7 ms·

Throwaway for obvious reasons, but I'm really shocked how the US isn't doing more to prevent foreign state actors from operating inside our borders. I've had t

Throwaway for obvious reasons, but I'm really shocked how the US isn't doing more to prevent foreign state actors from operating inside our borders. I've had the chance to work with people who were openly aligned with the CCP, and I watched them do some pretty shady things. We as a country need to clarify that there's a difference between being critical of the CCP as a government vs. sinophobia/racism.

Aunche 5y ago
>I've had the chance to work with people who were openly aligned with the CCP What's wrong with someone openly having opinions different from yours? If they were really a threat to the US, then they would remain as inconspicuous as possible.
- fjdncncndb 5y ago
  It was more than that, and looking back, it was such a strange situation that I'm not sure I would believe it if I heard about this from someone else. From what I can tell, this person assumed the identity of someone who went to Cornell in order to get hired. Her Cornell email account had the photo of a completely different person associated with it. Her company ID and username on the internal company chat had a different chinese name than the person we hired, and when asked about this, she said she legally changed her name the week before starting her new job. While she worked for us, she said she moonlights for China United Front to fight disinformation against the Chinese government on Chinese social media. She was with us for three months before giving us four days notice that she was quitting to go full time with her social media job. We were both working as data scientists for a large US corporation, and we had access to all sorts of really sensitive internal company data.
baybal2 5y ago
> I've had the chance to work with people who were openly aligned with the CCP How does it surprise people these days? China had 20 years of relatively good relationships with US, and the world's biggest spy service. Take a look at Russia, a supposed ally of Beijing. Annually, there are dozens, and dozens of people who are given life for espionage for China. And those are only cases which go public. Russia is a closed, militarist society, with secret police sticking its nose into everything. USA is an open country, with open borders, immigration system, freedom to do whatever business you want, and an open society, with a few million people strong entrepreneur class exuberant at the opportunity of doing business even with a place like China. It is rational to believe that there are way more than just a few random communists who got into your biggest companies, and much likely that there been a many decades long concerted infiltration, and recruitment campaign. This is just what those guys do. For example, a former "student activist" from Maoist Kharagpur is now running one very big Californian Internet company.
- ssvss 5y ago
  The student activist's father was also a Communist leader in Madurai.
sidlls 5y ago
China (CCP) is an adversary; an enemy. Full stop. "Being critical" isn't enough. We ought to treat them as what they are: an adversary to be thwarted and fought.
- ben_w 5y ago
  An enemy to be fought and a mere adversary are very different levels. I certainly hope I’m no longer on Earth if and when the USA and China treat each other as actual enemies rather than rivals.
  - sidlls 5y ago
    We already are “actual enemies,” but the US isn’t acting like it. And that’s problematic. We should consider China of today the same way we considered Germany in WW2. They’re that bad, and we should be acting like it.
    - xtian 5y ago
      Will you enlist?
      - xxpor 5y ago
        Why would anyone need to enlist? We have nukes, they have nukes, there won't be a massive ground war.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        zentiggr 5y ago
        It won't be nukes. It'll be the biggest naval / air / amphibious battle since the Pacific theater of WW2. Just resolved a LOT faster.
    - yhoneycomb 5y ago
      Yikes. What's problematic is equating China to Nazi Germany. If you're talking about military aggression and lack of a moral compass, look no further than the US, which has hundreds of military bases all around the world spreading "freedom."
yhoneycomb 5y ago
The problem is it all boils down to sinophobia/racism. At the end of the day, white people in America can't bear the thought of a non-white country surpassing them as the world leader. Bring on the downvotes.
- moistbar 5y ago
  Yeah, it sure is racist to be critical of a country that's in the midst of a nationwide ethnic cleansing.
  - yhoneycomb 5y ago
    You mean the US? Have you seen what's going on in the middle east? And that just scratches the surface. Not sure where you're getting your news of a "nationwide ethnic cleansing" from, other than western news sources that intentionally feed propaganda to rile people up for war. There's only one country in the nation with literally hundreds of military bases all over the world, and it's not China.
    - moistbar 5y ago
      Oh neat, the wu mao is actually confronting me. Was your blatant attempt at misdirection worth the fifty cents?
      - yhoneycomb 5y ago
        Seems obvious that your comments are not in good faith. I feel like I'm talking to a kindergartner with their fingers in their ears, yelling "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU." I guess it can be hard to accept that all the propaganda we learned in school - about the US being the greatest country ever, spreading freedom to all, etc. is just blatantly false. For the record, I was born and raised in the US, but I have come to understand that we are the problem.
        moistbar 5y ago
HumblyTossed 5y ago
I'm shocked for the opposite reason. If our politicians and the people they place in charge of government services are examples of the same type of people who run the government contractor companies, I'm shocked that this isn't a rampant problem.
fouric 5y ago
> We as a country need to clarify that there's a difference between being critical of the CCP as a government vs. sinophobia/racism. That distinction shouldn't need to be made in the first place - it's pretty blindingly obvious to anyone with basic thinking skills that "the government of a county" and "the people/nationalities/culture of a county" are two totally different things. Even American county dwellers, who tend to be less educated, can understand this pretty easily - most of them identify as being "Americans", but are still critical of their government (and associated politicians).
- missosoup 5y ago
  > obvious to anyone with basic thinking skills that "the government of a county" and "the people/nationalities/culture of a county" are two totally different things. The CCP has invested a lot of energy into making the people of China conflate these two concepts. The party IS China and the two are inseparable according to the CCP. This is where the topic becomes contentious and not so black and white. The CCP has successfully influenced millions of people into doing its bidding abroad. And the CCP is fully aware of the West's strong aversion to racism in any form, and has been able to weaponise it. Relevant reading: Silent Invasion: China's influence in Australia (2018)
- fatjokes 5y ago
  Yet that is not what we see happening. Indeed this is affecting those who look Asian, let alone Chinese. (The rise in anti-Asian hate crimes is now well reported and easily Google-able in both right- and left-wing media). The issue is called out-group homogeneity bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
- wilsonthewhale 5y ago
  You have really high hopes for the standard American. The offhand racism against Chinese people (not the PRC) I see in online communities, even supposedly liberal ones like Reddit, is very telling. As an American of Chinese descent, I honestly have very real concerns about my own safety in the next decade or two going forward. Japanese internment camps happened not too long ago, they can happen again. Or worse. Even if it weren't government sanctioned, violence against us is still on the rise[1]. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684
vmh1928 5y ago
This wasn't foreign state actors operating inside our borders it was a sloppy, DIY file sharing system that shipped the files all over.

Aunche 5y ago

>I've had the chance to work with people who were openly aligned with the CCP What's wrong with someone openly having opinions different from yours? If they were really a threat to the US, then they would remain as inconspicuous as possible.

fjdncncndb 5y ago
It was more than that, and looking back, it was such a strange situation that I'm not sure I would believe it if I heard about this from someone else. From what I can tell, this person assumed the identity of someone who went to Cornell in order to get hired. Her Cornell email account had the photo of a completely different person associated with it. Her company ID and username on the internal company chat had a different chinese name than the person we hired, and when asked about this, she said she legally changed her name the week before starting her new job. While she worked for us, she said she moonlights for China United Front to fight disinformation against the Chinese government on Chinese social media. She was with us for three months before giving us four days notice that she was quitting to go full time with her social media job. We were both working as data scientists for a large US corporation, and we had access to all sorts of really sensitive internal company data.

baybal2 5y ago

> I've had the chance to work with people who were openly aligned with the CCP How does it surprise people these days? China had 20 years of relatively good relationships with US, and the world's biggest spy service. Take a look at Russia, a supposed ally of Beijing. Annually, there are dozens, and dozens of people who are given life for espionage for China. And those are only cases which go public. Russia is a closed, militarist society, with secret police sticking its nose into everything. USA is an open country, with open borders, immigration system, freedom to do whatever business you want, and an open society, with a few million people strong entrepreneur class exuberant at the opportunity of doing business even with a place like China. It is rational to believe that there are way more than just a few random communists who got into your biggest companies, and much likely that there been a many decades long concerted infiltration, and recruitment campaign. This is just what those guys do. For example, a former "student activist" from Maoist Kharagpur is now running one very big Californian Internet company.

ssvss 5y ago
The student activist's father was also a Communist leader in Madurai.

sidlls 5y ago

China (CCP) is an adversary; an enemy. Full stop. "Being critical" isn't enough. We ought to treat them as what they are: an adversary to be thwarted and fought.

ben_w 5y ago
An enemy to be fought and a mere adversary are very different levels. I certainly hope I’m no longer on Earth if and when the USA and China treat each other as actual enemies rather than rivals.
- sidlls 5y ago
  We already are “actual enemies,” but the US isn’t acting like it. And that’s problematic. We should consider China of today the same way we considered Germany in WW2. They’re that bad, and we should be acting like it.
  - xtian 5y ago
    Will you enlist?
    - xxpor 5y ago
      Why would anyone need to enlist? We have nukes, they have nukes, there won't be a massive ground war.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - zentiggr 5y ago
        It won't be nukes. It'll be the biggest naval / air / amphibious battle since the Pacific theater of WW2. Just resolved a LOT faster.
  - yhoneycomb 5y ago
    Yikes. What's problematic is equating China to Nazi Germany. If you're talking about military aggression and lack of a moral compass, look no further than the US, which has hundreds of military bases all around the world spreading "freedom."

yhoneycomb 5y ago

The problem is it all boils down to sinophobia/racism. At the end of the day, white people in America can't bear the thought of a non-white country surpassing them as the world leader. Bring on the downvotes.

moistbar 5y ago
Yeah, it sure is racist to be critical of a country that's in the midst of a nationwide ethnic cleansing.
- yhoneycomb 5y ago
  You mean the US? Have you seen what's going on in the middle east? And that just scratches the surface. Not sure where you're getting your news of a "nationwide ethnic cleansing" from, other than western news sources that intentionally feed propaganda to rile people up for war. There's only one country in the nation with literally hundreds of military bases all over the world, and it's not China.
  - moistbar 5y ago
    Oh neat, the wu mao is actually confronting me. Was your blatant attempt at misdirection worth the fifty cents?
    - yhoneycomb 5y ago
      Seems obvious that your comments are not in good faith. I feel like I'm talking to a kindergartner with their fingers in their ears, yelling "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU." I guess it can be hard to accept that all the propaganda we learned in school - about the US being the greatest country ever, spreading freedom to all, etc. is just blatantly false. For the record, I was born and raised in the US, but I have come to understand that we are the problem.
      - moistbar 5y ago

HumblyTossed 5y ago

I'm shocked for the opposite reason. If our politicians and the people they place in charge of government services are examples of the same type of people who run the government contractor companies, I'm shocked that this isn't a rampant problem.

fouric 5y ago

> We as a country need to clarify that there's a difference between being critical of the CCP as a government vs. sinophobia/racism. That distinction shouldn't need to be made in the first place - it's pretty blindingly obvious to anyone with basic thinking skills that "the government of a county" and "the people/nationalities/culture of a county" are two totally different things. Even American county dwellers, who tend to be less educated, can understand this pretty easily - most of them identify as being "Americans", but are still critical of their government (and associated politicians).

missosoup 5y ago
> obvious to anyone with basic thinking skills that "the government of a county" and "the people/nationalities/culture of a county" are two totally different things. The CCP has invested a lot of energy into making the people of China conflate these two concepts. The party IS China and the two are inseparable according to the CCP. This is where the topic becomes contentious and not so black and white. The CCP has successfully influenced millions of people into doing its bidding abroad. And the CCP is fully aware of the West's strong aversion to racism in any form, and has been able to weaponise it. Relevant reading: Silent Invasion: China's influence in Australia (2018)
fatjokes 5y ago
Yet that is not what we see happening. Indeed this is affecting those who look Asian, let alone Chinese. (The rise in anti-Asian hate crimes is now well reported and easily Google-able in both right- and left-wing media). The issue is called out-group homogeneity bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity
wilsonthewhale 5y ago
You have really high hopes for the standard American. The offhand racism against Chinese people (not the PRC) I see in online communities, even supposedly liberal ones like Reddit, is very telling. As an American of Chinese descent, I honestly have very real concerns about my own safety in the next decade or two going forward. Japanese internment camps happened not too long ago, they can happen again. Or worse. Even if it weren't government sanctioned, violence against us is still on the rise[1]. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684

vmh1928 5y ago

This wasn't foreign state actors operating inside our borders it was a sloppy, DIY file sharing system that shipped the files all over.