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There should be a substantial CIA effort to recruit at every US university with more than 2 Chinese nationals. Student loans forgiven and green cards for the fa

There should be a substantial CIA effort to recruit at every US university with more than 2 Chinese nationals. Student loans forgiven and green cards for the family.

throw10920 2y ago
The idea is good, but will probably only really work for students with weak family ties back to the PRC, which will be pretty rare. For those with loved ones in the PRC, there is ample documentation that the CCP will threaten their families to get them to come back (one of the techniques used in Operation Fox Hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt). Arranging for a "family vacation" to the US that turns into permanent residence will only work a few times before the CCP catches on.
pclmulqdq 2y ago
Chinese nationals who come to the US are often rich enough to not have any student debt.
- popcalc 2y ago
  Yeah, they pay in cash up front. I've seen sometimes physical bundles of bills.
  - alecco 2y ago
    Why is this downvoted? The comment sounds plausible. The Chinese mob (wink wink) has the biggest money laundering operation in the world. They have brokers who pick up (source) and deliver (destination) the cash. They do all the currency conversion. And then have an internal market to auction the conversions. All over Chinese government controlled networks like WeChat. Very clever. The Triads have been doing this kind of dark market money transfers for decades (it's mentioned in the book Mr Nice like it was old news in the 80s). I've met Chinese people who use it to send/receive from family and investors in mainland China. I've met agents who investigate the networks of companies Chinese mobsters make to cover up their tracks. Financial Times doc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjGIp7kdS6E#t=8m32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjGIp7kdS6E#t=8m32
    - tokioyoyo 2y ago
      You're right, but also lumping every rich Chinese into a "part of a mob" is kinda funny. We talk about how we've outsources a buttloads of manufacturing to China, how they're making a killing out of their industrial policies and etc. Obviously there will be millions of people in China who are rich through their businesses. Just like in the states. Dirty money will always exist, and currently exists in every single country. But in the past 20 years, there have been a rise in the amount of rich Chinese. Just like rich Japanese of 80s through their RE investments and etc.
      - popcalc 2y ago
        You cannot as a private person legally move more than about 100K USD out of mainland CN per year. You have to resort to criminal elements. Only they have the network. It's one of those things everyone does but lives in fear of being used against them by an enemy down the line.
        alephnerd 2y ago
        The currency controls only began being enforced by Xi's admin in 2017-18, and it's just another tool of his to further entrench control. Ironic given that his daughter attended Harvard, which is very pricy on a 2000s-era party salary.
        tokioyoyo 2y ago
        I mean, 50K/year limit is pretty trivial to overcome. Those controls exist in a lot of countries, and anyone who has a decent amount of money is aware of ways of getting around it legally.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        It's a side effect of the currency controls Xi put in place in 2017-18. Around that time, the Xi admin began limiting the amount of currency outflow from a single household to around $50-100k a year. That isn't enough for international tuition in most cases in the US, or moving abroad. As such, anyone who wanted to move or pay tuition in the US began leveraging shadow banks.
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
About twenty-five years ago, two Chinese students at my university were killed for seemingly no reason. Whoever killed them didn't steal anything. They hadn't been in any known conflicts with others in the community. It seemed completely random. But it wasn't. Turned out the husband was the son of the governor of some rural province in China. The father got into some kind of conflict with rivals, so they sent someone to the US to murder his son and daughter-in-law to send him a message. They were in the US under aliases but that didn't protect them, neither did being on the other side of the planet in a small, rural college town. If China wants to reach out and make an example of students in the US who turn their back on their homeland, they can do so very easily and in a manner that both has plausible deniability and sends a clear message to other students. We're an open society and it's impossible to protect everyone from other nation-states if they see an individual as a threat to the nation-state's interests.
- memonkey 2y ago
  i could not find a source for this anywhere on the internet after trying multiple queries.
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  can you link any source about this happening? seems like it would be high-profile and documented but can't find any reference to this event so i kinda think you made it up if i'm being honest
supriyo-biswas 2y ago
I wonder if this'd just lead to a perverse incentive[1] where the share of Chinese nationals in universities increases as an effect. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
duxup 2y ago
I suspect to some extent those students allowed to go are already filtered by China, and they have family back home. Not that any given country wouldn't still try, but I think it would be difficult and it's not clear what you'd get out of it.

There should be a substantial CIA effort to recruit at every US university with more than 2 Chinese nationals. Student loans forgiven and green cards for the family.

throw10920 2y ago

The idea is good, but will probably only really work for students with weak family ties back to the PRC, which will be pretty rare. For those with loved ones in the PRC, there is ample documentation that the CCP will threaten their families to get them to come back (one of the techniques used in Operation Fox Hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt). Arranging for a "family vacation" to the US that turns into permanent residence will only work a few times before the CCP catches on.

pclmulqdq 2y ago

Chinese nationals who come to the US are often rich enough to not have any student debt.

popcalc 2y ago
Yeah, they pay in cash up front. I've seen sometimes physical bundles of bills.
- alecco 2y ago
  Why is this downvoted? The comment sounds plausible. The Chinese mob (wink wink) has the biggest money laundering operation in the world. They have brokers who pick up (source) and deliver (destination) the cash. They do all the currency conversion. And then have an internal market to auction the conversions. All over Chinese government controlled networks like WeChat. Very clever. The Triads have been doing this kind of dark market money transfers for decades (it's mentioned in the book Mr Nice like it was old news in the 80s). I've met Chinese people who use it to send/receive from family and investors in mainland China. I've met agents who investigate the networks of companies Chinese mobsters make to cover up their tracks. Financial Times doc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjGIp7kdS6E#t=8m32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjGIp7kdS6E#t=8m32
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    You're right, but also lumping every rich Chinese into a "part of a mob" is kinda funny. We talk about how we've outsources a buttloads of manufacturing to China, how they're making a killing out of their industrial policies and etc. Obviously there will be millions of people in China who are rich through their businesses. Just like in the states. Dirty money will always exist, and currently exists in every single country. But in the past 20 years, there have been a rise in the amount of rich Chinese. Just like rich Japanese of 80s through their RE investments and etc.
    - popcalc 2y ago
      You cannot as a private person legally move more than about 100K USD out of mainland CN per year. You have to resort to criminal elements. Only they have the network. It's one of those things everyone does but lives in fear of being used against them by an enemy down the line.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        The currency controls only began being enforced by Xi's admin in 2017-18, and it's just another tool of his to further entrench control. Ironic given that his daughter attended Harvard, which is very pricy on a 2000s-era party salary.
      - tokioyoyo 2y ago
        I mean, 50K/year limit is pretty trivial to overcome. Those controls exist in a lot of countries, and anyone who has a decent amount of money is aware of ways of getting around it legally.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      It's a side effect of the currency controls Xi put in place in 2017-18. Around that time, the Xi admin began limiting the amount of currency outflow from a single household to around $50-100k a year. That isn't enough for international tuition in most cases in the US, or moving abroad. As such, anyone who wanted to move or pay tuition in the US began leveraging shadow banks.

Mountain_Skies 2y ago

About twenty-five years ago, two Chinese students at my university were killed for seemingly no reason. Whoever killed them didn't steal anything. They hadn't been in any known conflicts with others in the community. It seemed completely random. But it wasn't. Turned out the husband was the son of the governor of some rural province in China. The father got into some kind of conflict with rivals, so they sent someone to the US to murder his son and daughter-in-law to send him a message. They were in the US under aliases but that didn't protect them, neither did being on the other side of the planet in a small, rural college town. If China wants to reach out and make an example of students in the US who turn their back on their homeland, they can do so very easily and in a manner that both has plausible deniability and sends a clear message to other students. We're an open society and it's impossible to protect everyone from other nation-states if they see an individual as a threat to the nation-state's interests.

memonkey 2y ago
i could not find a source for this anywhere on the internet after trying multiple queries.
whimsicalism 2y ago
can you link any source about this happening? seems like it would be high-profile and documented but can't find any reference to this event so i kinda think you made it up if i'm being honest

supriyo-biswas 2y ago

I wonder if this'd just lead to a perverse incentive[1] where the share of Chinese nationals in universities increases as an effect. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

duxup 2y ago

I suspect to some extent those students allowed to go are already filtered by China, and they have family back home. Not that any given country wouldn't still try, but I think it would be difficult and it's not clear what you'd get out of it.