[HN Gopher] Swiss Ph.D student's dismissal spotlights China's in...
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Swiss Ph.D student's dismissal spotlights China's influence
Author : ipnon
Score : 633 points
Date : 2021-08-07 04:13 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nzz.ch)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nzz.ch)
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Meta comment: this story is the future of geopolitics. A
| confusing mess of different narratives, each backed up with a
| cornucopia of digital "evidence." It is still unclear to me
| exactly what happened here. All I can be certain of is that all
| participants are incentivized to spin a story in their own favor.
| Ice_cream_suit wrote:
| "received a message from a Chinese doctoral student doing
| research at a Canadian university.
|
| The writer accuses Gerber of a <<racist attack on the Chinese
| people.>> He was referring to a specific tweet: a cartoon that
| Gerber had posted in response to another user's tweet. It
| depicted a comic character that had been altered and had
| stereotyped Chinese features, with yellow skin tone and slit
| eyes. This drawing circulated on social media in the spring of
| 2020, and was deemed racist by some users. "
|
| Nasty stuff.
| exo-pla-net wrote:
| This is an article spun to make controversy out of nothing.
|
| The narrative is that a student tweeted something critical about
| China, and the CCP pressured his advisor into dropping him.
|
| The reality is that the student published a tweet that "depicted
| a comic character that had been altered and had stereotyped
| Chinese features, with yellow skin tone and slit eyes". This
| understandably was perceived as racist by a Chinese student in
| Canada, who complained to the advisor. The advisor agreed and
| dropped her racist-seeming doctoral student.
|
| The CCP wasn't involved. Nobody cared about his criticism of
| China. It was his racist-looking tweet that got him dismissed.
|
| Edit: But yes, the CCP can have a chilling effect on free speech.
| See the Blitzchung controversy. This article is just a non-story.
| javert wrote:
| For anyone else wondering if the above commenter is a Chinese
| propaganda account, you can see from his or her comment history
| that that is not the case.
| ipnon wrote:
| Lest ye incur the wrath of dang, HN newbies, accusing others
| of astroturfing or hidden agendas is against the guidelines.
| jacquesm wrote:
| He didn't. And I resent your portrayal of Daniel he's not
| vengeful. Which given some of the idiocy he has to deal
| with quite amazing.
| ipnon wrote:
| It was meant to be in jest, I'm sorry.
| javert wrote:
| > Lest ye incur the wrath of dang, HN newbies, accusing
| others of astroturfing or hidden agendas is against the
| guidelines.
|
| For people who are having trouble parsing that:
|
| I am not an HN noob and I did not accuse anyone of
| astroturfing.
|
| The opposite, on both counts.
| exo-pla-net wrote:
| I'm afraid I may have dragged you down with me. Johnny
| thought he saw CCP behind the tree, so the surrounding
| transnational region needs to be firebombed as a
| precautionary measure. One has to go along with it, or
| one is immediately court marshaled as a secret CCP
| sympathizer.
|
| Anyway, now that we're at the bottom of the comment
| thread and just talking to each other, thanks for
| vouching for me. You probably saved me from being
| hammered even deeper into the downvote pit.
| javert wrote:
| You're welcome.
| ipnon wrote:
| The advisor who dismissed the student changed their story
| multiple times, didn't name the accuser, and contradicts the
| Ph.D. students records of his matriculation and attendance.
| Furthermore she has a motive, if she is truly under political
| pressure or is intimidated by the diplomatic consequences of
| being associated with a critic of CCP. She is a China
| researcher, so being barred from entering China could be a
| fatal blow to her career. Finally, the last thing she wants is
| a viral story in fairly reputable newspaper of record.
|
| I cannot directly refute your claims, only call them into
| question. But I think that is the crux of the story here
| anyway, to question. What affect is the mass surveillance and
| blanket censorship of China having on Western institutions of
| open inquiry? Are the tendrils of the PRC police state
| stretching into places we assume will always be bastions of
| free speech? I don't think we can definitively answer these
| either way today.
| afc wrote:
| Yeah, agree.
|
| Almost the entire article is spun telling only one part of the
| story, and only towards the very end do they, at least, reveal
| the other side, which shows that the student published a racist
| cartoon, and that it was just some random person who complained
| to the professor. It feels misleading and deliberate that, from
| the start, they mention that they've seen the emails which
| confirm the student's account, but withhold the rest of the
| information (the racist image; the deregistration affair) until
| near the end.
|
| I'm disappointed; I expect better from the NZZ.
| Aunche wrote:
| It's convenient to believe that your enemy is so fragile that
| they're threatened by a twitterer with a dozen followers. I
| don't see how that does one any good outside a feeling of smug
| superiority. China is building a frightening amount soft power
| through trade deals and building goodwill. That's what people
| should be talking about, not China supposedly censoring angry
| opinions that can be found anywhere else on the internet.
| dear wrote:
| Google "glass heart"
| bmn__ wrote:
| > It's convenient to believe that your enemy is so fragile
|
| There is ample evidence that they are butt-hurt by the
| tiniest criticism - intentioned or not, real or imagined, by
| inclusion or by omission - which would not even count as an
| affront under most other circumstances. The psychic trauma
| that is amenable to a degree for this response unfortunately
| is deeply seated and difficult to shake loose.
| rocqua wrote:
| China is not at all worried about small Twitter followers.
| But if China shows they will shut down even the most
| inconsequential dissent. Then real dissent will know that, if
| they speak up, they will be shutdown very hard.
| will4274 wrote:
| Until I see it, I'm not going to believe that cartoon is
| racist. I mean seriously, Asian people have skin that is
| somewhat more yellow and somewhat narrower eyes. With the way
| the media manipulates anything, the lack of a photo is a pretty
| strong sign that the cartoon ISN'T significantly racist (just
| as the lack of race in the title in a act of police brutality
| is a strong sign that the victim is white).
| throw453212 wrote:
| I have the opposite thought. The article was obviously
| sympathetic to the student, so not including the racist image
| is a pretty strong sign.
|
| Even the student ended up saying if he had given it more
| thought, he would not have posted the racist image.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| The professor should be fired and the university punished
| (doubtful), but the student was also an idiot to do what he did.
| It's not like he was some random guy who just tweeted at China,
| he lived in wuhan for years and has actual family there now,
| being critical of a totalitarian government in that scenario is
| the height of monumental stupidity. It's ironic that the article
| paints him as methodological and thoughtful because he seems
| anything but in his actions.
| spacebeer wrote:
| So the best way to fight totalitarian regimes is to remain
| silent? That will work for sure, as it always did
| rini17 wrote:
| No, that conclusion does not follow from parent.
| rdiddly wrote:
| And yet I have more respect for someone criticizing China who
| has actual skin in the game.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| Totally agree - he is studying china, lived in china, has a
| chinese girlfriend _in china_ who advised him to stop the
| critical tweets...and he just kept doing it anyway???
|
| "His girlfriend was shocked when she saw some of the tweets.
| Talking with him on the telephone, she begged him to stop. Not
| because she necessarily disagreed with anything. But because
| she was worried about retaliation by the Chinese government.
| <<I'm in Switzerland, not China,>> Gerber replied. <<I can say
| what I want here.>>
|
| Sorry to sound harsh, but I would argue that level of naivety /
| ignorance pretty much should disqualify him from a PhD in
| anything related to modern day China.
| usr1106 wrote:
| So you say only liars and cowards can get PhD today?
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| I say that jeopardizing the safety of your loved one and
| her family back in China after they specifically ask you
| not to take some action, and while you are safely abroad is
| not a good example of moral courage
| jkhdigital wrote:
| So what are some good examples?
| kome wrote:
| monumental stupidity or monumental courage?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Or monumental inadaptability, which could be either naive or
| deliberate.
|
| Including a "They would not support the other side, would
| they?"
| [deleted]
| jvll wrote:
| It's not about whether it was stupid what he's done. It's about
| the fact that China has this much influence on Swiss education.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Let us check it again: I understand it is more like "There
| exist operators in Swiss education who are in a weak
| position, e.g. for the need to obtain visa which could be
| critical to perform their job".
|
| It is not that there is not an influence (it could be China
| as much as many other entities), but given the above it is
| transversal to the job.
| curiousgal wrote:
| > China has this much influence on Swiss education.
|
| What are you on about?
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| CCP influence in foreign universities is definitely a
| thing, at least under Xi (mostly aimed at Mainland Chinese
| students studying abroad, not Westerners directly).
|
| It got to the point where a special taskforce was set up
| specifically to tackle this issue here in Australia; I'd be
| surprised if we were the only country experiencing this.
| new299 wrote:
| Reminds me of the Shaw quote:
|
| "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the
| unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to
| himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable
| man."
| TechnoTimeStop wrote:
| Aye! Fuck the oppressive CCP shithole agenda!
| ipnon wrote:
| But nominally, you can be a political fool in Switzerland
| without professional consequence.[a] It seems he is being
| forced to play by the social rules of China in Switzerland.
| It's fair to say his tweets could jeopardize his ability to
| return to China and secure a professorship or research
| position, but to suffer professional consequences in
| Switzerland, in the heart of Europe, for Chinese political
| incorrectness is unprecedented.
|
| [a] For example, in America you can post on Facebook about MAGA
| or tweet about BLM and you will rarely if ever lose your job or
| doctorate candidacy.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| from the context of the article it seems like he's getting
| his PhD in Chinese studies, and obviously that likely means
| you will have relations to China, which is what the professor
| in question was worried about.
|
| It's a little bit like majoring in Iranian studies, insulting
| the Ayatollah and prophet on Twitter and then being upset
| when you get barred from the country and people start
| professionally ditching you. Like, when you pursue an
| academic career with close ties to a country with a very
| different political set of values I would assume you
| understand the kind of diplomatic issues you can run into?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > from the context of the article it seems like he's
| getting his PhD in Chinese studies
|
| Huh? This is what the article says:
|
| >> His research was in the field of environmental
| pollution.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| He didn't study China just some environmental aspects of
| it. But point still stands.
| rocqua wrote:
| His PhD was about environmental damage in China. That is
| not something cultural or diplomatic. It does not require
| close ties with China, though it does help to have access.
|
| Nothing here means you shouldn't criticize China. In fact,
| the premise of the research becomes moot if you cannot
| criticize China.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >That is not something cultural or diplomatic
|
| it evidently is or else we wouldn't be having this
| discussion right now. Everything in China is political
| which everyone knows who has ever interacted with Chinese
| institutions. (which you probably will if you study
| environmental damage in China).
|
| It's really not that surprising that a professor is not
| going to associate with someone who posts vaguely racist
| cartoons to his ten followers on twitter if it costs them
| their visa.
|
| If you really want a career that involves studying
| aspects of a foreign culture you better learn to navigate
| the waters or you won't have a career, that's not really
| a new thing. If you're an archaeologist you probably
| won't be one for long if you insult the governments that
| let you access your dig sites, is that really a scandal?
| everly wrote:
| I think it actually requires both diplomacy and cultural
| awareness.
|
| If you want to study the 'damage' that a country is
| doing, it seems like it would serve you well to avoid
| ruffling too many feathers so that you can do your work
| in peace and without being accused of bias.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| The ccp is not china.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I mean it sort of is though. There are no elections in
| China, the CCP has total control over the government. You
| can claim that a country isn't defined by its government,
| but many would disagree.
| MikeUt wrote:
| Maybe not lose your job, but the University of California
| will prevent you from getting one, as they require all job
| candidates to commit to and have a history of advancing
| diversity. Conflicting political posts would probably harm
| your ability to pass this first step of the job application
| process.
|
| _The University's New Loyalty Oath_ -
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-universitys-new-loyalty-
| oat...
| rocqua wrote:
| I doubt the UCA is actually going to check. But it us still
| horrible that a university is enacting such a political
| requirement.
|
| It feels to me much more aimed at being able to fire people
| when controversy arrises than something used to actively
| screen new hires. Though perhaps the self-selection is also
| meant as a goal.
| MikeUt wrote:
| > It feels to me much more aimed at being able to fire
| people when controversy arrises than something used to
| actively screen new hires.
|
| If you mean my speculation about political posts, then
| you're probably right. But if you mean the diversity
| pledge screening, then you couldn't be more wrong. From
| another article on the same subject:
|
| > eight different departments affiliated with the life
| sciences used a diversity rubric to weed out applicants
| for positions. This was the _first step_ : In one
| example, of a pool of 894 candidates was narrowed down to
| 214 based solely on how convincing their plans to spread
| diversity were.
|
| https://reason.com/2020/02/03/university-of-california-
| diver...
| elygre wrote:
| In the US, tweeting critically about Israel would probably be
| the bigger risk.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Salaita_hiring_contro.
| ..
| [deleted]
| jkhdigital wrote:
| You found an incredibly ripe cherry to pluck with this one!
| Literally anyone with a beef can attempt to derail a hiring
| decision nowadays. People are getting unhired because
| someone dug up old Instagram videos where they say the N
| word while singing rap lyrics as a teenager. It's
| absolutely insane, and you cherry picked one example that
| is not even remotely representative of this phenomenon as a
| whole.
| beaunative wrote:
| Couple of professors who are unfriendly to black people got
| fired too, not saying its wrong, but its not that different
| in this case. Someone got offended, someone got fired.
| unabirra wrote:
| Only if the post praises BLM and criticizes MAGA... Lots of
| people have lost their jobs (and even dropped from public
| funded colleges) because of this. Not sure if you are really
| not aware of this, or if your comment is not in good faith.
| josephtill wrote:
| > Only if the post praises BLM and criticizes MAGA... Lots
| of people have lost their jobs (and even dropped from
| public funded colleges) because of this.
|
| I've never heard of such a thing. Could you give a specific
| example of these "lots of people"?
| emn13 wrote:
| Additionally, this framing - of MAGA vs. BLM - is also
| unreasonable. Hiring processes are by design
| discriminatory; people don't just hire at random. There's
| no reason to assume public statements by a candidate that
| appear to fall in a pro-BLM bucket would be as attractive
| to the hiring process as statements that fall in a MAGA
| bucket would be unattractive; those two things likely
| have nothing to do with each other when it comes to
| hiring.
|
| In other words, regardless of actually instances of
| discrimination, this framing looks _chosen_ to try and
| create or sustain the so-called culture war.
| luckylion wrote:
| Troll accounts are annoying.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| Is that true?
|
| I had a quick search and i only found one case - a Michael
| J Dale covered in various outlets alleging dismissal for
| MAGA support back in 2018. However, i cant find that the
| case actually went to court. It appears Michael has decided
| against testing his claim in court?
|
| I can find some cases for the opposite - dismissal for
| criticising president Trimp:
|
| Jeff Klinzman had his day in court and was awarded a
| payout.
|
| Rob Rogers didn't go through courts but former employer on
| record in the Guardian newspaper confirming reason for his
| dismissal was his criticism of trump.
|
| Craig Silverman again didn't go via courts but his previous
| employer confirmed the reason for his shows termination.
|
| Allegations that don't appear to have gone to court yet:
|
| Dr. Bandy Lee (2020) Gabriel Noronha (2020)
| bmn__ wrote:
| > I had a quick search and i only found one case
|
| Cases (as in court cases) are just the easily visible tip
| of the iceberg. We do not see the aggrieved who did not
| make their story public for whatever reason.
| [deleted]
| ak_111 wrote:
| you most certainly lose your professorship in the US for
| tweeting mild stuff: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes
| .com/2020/01/11/us/B...
|
| also, renowned foreign professors in the US are sometimes
| bullied and treated as badly as they are in China:
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020.
| ..
|
| Chinese government is of course far more authoritarian but it
| is wise to point out that things have been worsening in US
| academia over the last couple of years.
| volta83 wrote:
| The student partner was living in Wuhan. The partner beg them
| to stop, and they didn't. Its partner is lucky not to be sent
| to a "re-education" camp.
|
| We all agree that the fact that this can happen is wrong, but
| what the student did is not just wishful thinking, they put
| their loved ones at risk. That's very disrespectful of other
| people lives.
|
| A PhD proofs that one is capable of conducting independent
| research on some topic. This story proofs that they are
| definitely not capable of conducting and directing
| independent research on China, so it makes no sense for this
| student to be on a PhD program anyways. They should have
| known better, since they were "China experts", but they
| didn't.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You can definitely get in massive trouble in the US and put
| your job in danger. Your superiors just have to massively
| disagree, or you might be posting about sensitive topics like
| Israel or the military.
|
| Both BLM and MAGA are incredibly mainstream movements.
| casualracism wrote:
| As I said in another comment, in the U.S., if you're an
| African American studies PhD student and you post a racist
| cartoon depicting black stereotypes, it's not hard to imagine
| losing your doctorate candidacy.
| yann2 wrote:
| What happens if I study cockroaches? Chinese cockroaches to
| be specific.
|
| Am I allowed to post cartoons about them? What about bears?
| [deleted]
| another_story wrote:
| I would assume in the first case, like the previous
| example, you would lose the Ph.D. But the second example
| with bears (assuming Pooh) is not a fair comparison to
| hate speech.
| Marvin_Martian wrote:
| Considering that the UBS put their chief economist on a
| leave of absence (initially they communicated that he had
| been let go of completly), for calling pigs in china
| "chinese pigs", I think ever mentioning that topic alone
| would already be to much.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > Am I allowed to post cartoons about them?
|
| Are there a lot of those floating around?
| [deleted]
| jollybean wrote:
| Why are you comparing blatantly racist actions with mild,
| indirect criticism of a government?
| casualracism wrote:
| What are you even talking about? Posting racist cartoon
| depicting stereotypes about Chinese is exactly what the
| Chinese studies PhD student did, so this is an exact
| parallel.
| jollybean wrote:
| A cartoon which has Chinese characters is not racist.
| casualracism wrote:
| Again, it's not just a "cartoon which has Chinese
| characters". Stop pushing misinformation in obvious
| contradiction with available information.
| jollybean wrote:
| "Again, it's not just a "cartoon which has Chinese
| characters"."
|
| Where is your evidence?
|
| Provide evidence of racism or stop harassing people.
| casualracism wrote:
| I posted multiple quotes from the very article being
| discussed as a reply to another misinformation comment
| from you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28097088
| If this very one-sided article says it was racist, it
| was, or they would have used it as ammunition instead of
| being as vague as possible.
|
| At this point it is very clear you're deliberately
| pushing bs in bad faith. You should be ashamed of
| yourself.
| samvega_ wrote:
| It had winnie the poo memes afaik. It would be like
| posting the drawn image of obama as a monkey (which
| caused a stir a while ago) while criticizing his policies
| in the US.
| dash2 wrote:
| Wait a second. Is the argument here that comparing Xi
| Jinping to Winnie the Pooh is "racist"? As opposed to
| just, say, offensive to a very powerful fat man? Wow, OK.
| I think we have a new standard for the use of racism
| accusations to censor people.
| l332mn wrote:
| Of course it is racist. I'm not sure if it was the Winnie
| the pooh, I assumed it was due to its prevalence and how
| the article described it as a cartoon depicting
| stereotyped features (yellow skin).
| dash2 wrote:
| "Of course"? You've got a link? Can you share?
| [deleted]
| casualracism wrote:
| This is a straw man because that's not what the cartoon
| was about, at least not according to TFA.
| casualracism wrote:
| Maybe you read about the incident elsewhere but TFA
| vaguely hints at a drawing of a Chinese person with
| offensively stereotyped features, which doesn't sound
| compatible with your Winnie the Pooh theory.
|
| In any case TFA deliberately made it hard for readers to
| form their own judgement.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| It was just a ,,Cartoon with Chinese characteristics"!
| jkhdigital wrote:
| Do you have a copy of the cartoon? The article intimated
| that it had possibly exaggerated Asiatic features. It did
| not indicate that the cartoon's actual intent was to
| lampoon an entire race, which is what would
| _traditionally_ qualify as racism (although I know the
| goalposts have been moved quite a bit).
| casualracism wrote:
| I don't have a copy of the cartoon, and I haven't read
| anything about this story other than what's in the
| article. But that the article is very vague about the
| cartoon is rather telling in itself: if it is innocuous
| enough why isn't it included or at least described in
| more detail as ammunition? The author wasn't shy about
| including the full tweet they'd like you to believe was
| the smoking gun. It's also impossible to tell "actual
| intent" even if the image is provided; pushing a
| political message is not at all mutually exclusive with
| contempt against an entire people.
|
| Anyway, this jollybean poster apparently also doesn't
| have a copy and posted in bad faith just to mislead
| people who didn't actually read the article, or only read
| what the author intended to highlight. Really tried of
| this bad faith engagement.
| ipnon wrote:
| Especially in America's highly controversial political
| climate today. This story would be much easier to parse if
| he had merely criticized the CCP, rather than reposting the
| cartoon. We should remember this incident and see if the
| pattern will repeat in the future, or if this was a case of
| inappropriate behavior that was fairly disciplined.
| [deleted]
| sushid wrote:
| He was getting a PhD from a university in China though? He
| was deregistered as a PhD candidate in his former university
| as well. If you're on a Chinese government scholarship and
| visa and your livelihood depends on that (as well as new
| family ties), why would you criticize the Chinese government?
| His research and life was tied to China. I would imagine
| you'd want to play by their social rules then.
| jkhdigital wrote:
| > being critical of a totalitarian government in that scenario
| is the height of monumental stupidity.
|
| He's not stupid, perhaps just naive. If only those with nothing
| at stake criticize a repressive regime then nothing would ever
| change.
| option wrote:
| sometimes being critical of totalitarian government is a sign
| of bravery. Especially for those with the skin in the game.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "totalitarian" sounds like propaganda
|
| This is from the country responsible for the patriot act
| bmn__ wrote:
| "tu quoque" detected, argument is invalid
|
| There are countries in the world who do not have a patriot
| act or similar. They can argue in place of the USA that the
| government of the country discussed in the article is
| totalitarian.
| curiousgal wrote:
| The story goes: dude studies in china. Is in Switzerland bc of
| corona. Starts posting anti CCP on Twitter. Posts racist
| picture, some chinese PhD student in Canada sees it. Emails his
| supervisor. Supervisor sees it and decides that she doesn't
| want to work with someone who posts racist pictures (for the
| wrong reason not bc of the picture but because she fears she
| will get excluded if she publishes with him). This is all very
| plausible imo if one could actually see the picture which
| conveniently isn't included.
|
| This is not saying anything about the CCPs control over
| research which is a very serious topic. As long as I don't see
| the relevant picture. It's a researcher not wanting to publish
| with a someone who posts racist stuff.
| sharken wrote:
| It is very convenient to only mention the racist picture and
| not also mention the accusation of the Chinese Coronavirus
| cover-up.
|
| The latter is just as bad for the CCP and would also lead to
| the events we have seen.
|
| But it's obvious that when you are doing Chinese studies paid
| by a Chinese university, then you're not free from
| repercussions when you tweet from a European country.
|
| So yes, China is influencing European universities and the
| west appears to accept this.
| curiousgal wrote:
| What are you on about? The CCP has nothing to do with this.
| fakedang wrote:
| The CCP can block the supervisor's future Chinese visa
| prospects if she were somehow linked to the PhD
| candidate. Hence she disowned him and utilized the
| university machinery to achieve it. That's literally the
| premise of the article.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Except that's what the professor thought would happen,
| not what actually did. If we're to act on hypothetical
| then where would we draw the line? The US asks visa
| applicants for all of their social media accounts, seems
| pretty standard to me.
| stale2002 wrote:
| The benefit of being a government that oppressing people
| who criticize it, is that they don't actually have to
| punish every single dissident.
|
| All you have to do, is make the threat known, and punish
| enough people, that everyone else falls in line.
|
| In this case, the behavior was directly caused by someone
| being justifiable afraid of something that could happen
| to them.
|
| This is known as a "chilling effect".
|
| So, yes, the CCP absolutely has something to do with the
| culture of fear that they created, that causes people to
| take these actions.
| fakedang wrote:
| That's what the professor thought would happen, based on
| historical precedent. She used that precedent as a basis
| to proactively act against the candidate.
| emn13 wrote:
| I think calling for the professors dismissal in this instance
| is completely unwarranted. Not only do we have only one side of
| the story here, we don't even know what those tweets were, or
| if there's anything else at play here, nor is the relationship
| very clear here (the supposed student was actually studying in
| china for 3 years? What exactly was the relationship with the
| Swiss professor then?) Additionally, it's just not acceptable
| to demand others suffer the consequences for fights you picked,
| no matter the justification.
|
| I mean, there is _clearly_ an argument that the funding,
| influence and prestige the Confucius institute grants also
| allows them influence, and that that influence is perhaps
| unwanted. But if that 's the conclusion, we should demand a
| counter-pressure by parties that are better able to withstand
| chinese pressure, e.g. perhaps some coalition of European
| countries that reject the institute whole cloth. Unfortunately,
| I doubt the EU can do much here because it's already been
| infiltrated by governments that clearly appear to be under
| Chinese influence, such as Hungary, and it needs unanimity for
| most action; and of course Switzerland isn't even in the EU.
|
| To put it another way: I have doubts a country like Switzerland
| would dare to pick this fight with China alone - but if so, how
| absurdly unreasonable is it to expect an individual professor
| to, without any kind of policy. The whole issue puts the wisdom
| of Switzerland's idea of independence at risk.
|
| Also, I no matter how you reject China's actions, I think it's
| morally pretty questionable to put your partner's family at
| risk, even if you think you're in the right, even if you are.
| petre wrote:
| The EU can take action against China and it has recently took
| soft action by updating its customs code1. However, Germany
| is not particulary keen on picking fights with China, because
| they export vehicles to the Chinese market. Let's just say
| there is not enough political will to do anything like this
| at this time. There's also the separate issue of banning
| Huawei 5G network carrier equipment in the EU due to data
| being leaked to China.
|
| 1. https://www.fonoa.com/blog/eu-imports-from-china-after-
| the-v...
| bigbillheck wrote:
| The main question I have is: what was the cartoon?
| echopurity wrote:
| It's interesting how these articles never post that cartoon,
| huh?
| casualracism wrote:
| Not sure what the timeline is here. TFA strongly implies it's a
| tweet on March 21 inciting a response on March 28, but buries the
| lede about the racist cartoon posted at an unknown time that the
| professor claims to have received an email about.
|
| I'm sure political factors play the leading role here, but it's
| long past the point where you can casually post racist cartoons
| and act surprised when you're hit by undesirable consequences.
| Imagine an African American studies PhD student casually posting
| racist cartoons depicting black stereotypes. People have been
| disciplined for much less (e.g. that professor who spoke a common
| Chinese phrase resembling the n word several times to caution
| students and later got suspended).
|
| And before you accuse me of things, I'm a long time HN user and
| I'm not paid to comment. Using a throwaway for radioactive
| topics.
| alex_smart wrote:
| >TFA strongly implies it's a tweet on March 21 inciting a
| response on March 28, but buries the lede about the racist
| cartoon posted at an unknown time that the professor claims to
| have received an email about.
|
| I continue to be amazed with how _creative_ propaganda can be.
| It is a simple misdirection (but oh how effect, just read the
| comments here). There is a paper trail showing what tweet the
| pushback had been about but the article still takes the liberty
| to draw up a strawman, and concludes -- Criticising the CCP is
| supposed to be <<Neo-Nazi>> like? Hawww.....
|
| One thing I have realized over time is that it is one thing to
| recognize deficiencies in an argument you are against, and a
| completely different thing to recognize the same in arguments
| for a cause that you do believe in.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| original tweets need to contained within articles like this.
| Timelines should be standard, before the body of the argument.
| Way too easy to spin a narrative for an audience hungry to
| believe.
| memonkey wrote:
| anti-asian propaganda is thriving right now
| hunglee2 wrote:
| sadly, there is a thirst for it.
| jollybean wrote:
| "And before you accuse me of things,"
|
| You're using a moniker 'casualracism' trying to exploit the
| notion of a cartoon which has 'Chinese Characters' as
| inherently racist, even though that's entirely likely to be a
| weaponized use of the term given the political context.
|
| "If you criticized China, you are Racist" is bad form.
|
| It's a very easy and common method of CCP duplicity to simply
| blow the 'racism' dog whistle and have 1/2 of Westerners
| immediately lose context and get distracted.
|
| There's no way what the PhD student did should lead to anything
| other than someone being trite on Twitter and that would be the
| end of it.
| casualracism wrote:
| TFA tried very hard to bury and brush off this detail but had
| to include
|
| > It depicted a comic character that had been altered and had
| stereotyped Chinese features, with yellow skin tone and slit
| eyes. This drawing circulated on social media in the spring
| of 2020, and was deemed racist by some users.
|
| The student reluctantly admitted
|
| > In retrospect, I realize I didn't question the rendering of
| the Chinese person enough
|
| Given TFA's clear sympathy for the student and intentional
| omission of what the cartoon actually is, one simply has to
| assume it's at least as racist as TFA claims (oh who am I
| kidding, it's more racist). It's clearly not a case of "the
| notion of cartoon which has 'Chinese character' as inherently
| racist." Asking "have you read the article" is frowned upon
| on HN but this is a case where the question justified. It's
| either that or you're arguing in bad faith.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Legally the university might have done nothing wrong. They had
| advised him to unregister to play tricks in order to avoid losing
| his study rights. A trick that is common if you study at more
| than one university. And works unless there is any kind of
| problem.
|
| However, the message is: If you deal with China today, either
| don't think, be a coward or a liar. China is an authoritarian
| country that increasingly exercises its power outside of the
| country.
|
| In Western democracies we are used that you can criticize. Strong
| democracies tolerate heavy criticism until you get into
| difficulties, others only weaker kinds. There is no doubt that
| China is very far from any kind of democracy.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Moreover they're worried. A lion doesn't care what the sheep
| thinks.
| d0mine wrote:
| There is no real critique outside certain boundaries e.g., try
| to say something negative about military in US
| quenix wrote:
| Being critical of the military in the U.S. is actually rather
| commonplace.
| arey_abhishek wrote:
| It feels like a bit of overreaction from the professor, unless
| there were other emails or calls from the Chinese government.
|
| If it was just one email, it could also be possible that she just
| wanted him to find a different advisor and didn't realize that
| breaking her advisory relationship with the student would leave
| him in the lurch and without a PHD.
|
| All in all a really bad incident for the kid.
| traveler01 wrote:
| The content of this article clearly shows how hurt the concept of
| free speach is nowadays.
|
| You tweet some stuff and you're life is destroyed. Simple. No
| warning or whatsoever, you just destroy your life because you
| angered China.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| Or you angered america, or the US political parties Or women or
| trans people or nonbinary people. It's like , if you don't draw
| a hard line, the virus keeps expanding
| taneq wrote:
| Turns out a side effect of the internet giving everyone a
| voice is that humans are pack animals and mob rule is in our
| nature.
| thelopa wrote:
| Look, I get it. Cancel culture isn't healthy for our society,
| but can we be realistic about our examples? JKR is doing just
| fine after posting her transphobic screed last year. The
| various lawmakers across the US that sponsored anti-trans
| legislation this year haven't been forcibly removed from
| office. Leading up to the presidential debates last year,
| speakers at the RNC made explicitly transphobic comments.
| Trump himself has started to wade into the fray. None of
| these people have lost their jobs, livelihoods, or platforms
| as a result. Yeah, some people decided they didn't want to
| read JKR's books any more, but when her essay is being read
| in debates in both UK parliament and US congress I wouldn't
| exactly say she lost her platform. I'm not saying backlash to
| anti-trans sentiment doesn't exist, but can we at least
| acknowledge that the backlash isn't nearly as severe as
| you're implying?
| cblconfederate wrote:
| First of all , these are rich people whose removal would be
| largely inconsequential to their livelihood. Under them you
| 'll find a sea of people who are self-censoring because
| their positions are much more precarious, and they see the
| whims of the mob.
|
| > haven't been forcibly removed from office
|
| Second i find this insinuation that a mob should be able to
| remove elected people from office problematic
| ungamedplayer wrote:
| None of the 'larger' more affluent people.. sure.
| rocqua wrote:
| I think cancel culture is much worse for people who are
| close to the community tgat cancels them than people far
| removed. This is sorta obvious if you consider how much
| effect a community can have on someone by cancelling them.
|
| Sometimes cancel culture affects people outside the
| community. And then everyone is on the barricades. But I
| think the real damage is being done inside these
| communities. Essentially the communities lose the ability
| to be self critical. A lot of these communities are trying
| to improve the rights of certain people. But this lack of
| self criticism makes them much less effective at convincing
| outsiders.
|
| This is especially bad for reaching the people who disagree
| quite strongly. I think this is part of why the American
| political centre seems to be empty.
| thelopa wrote:
| Are you inside the trans rights movement and have seen
| this happen first hand, or can you cite an advocate for
| trans rights that was shunned by the community? What you
| describe is an interesting hypothetical problem. In my
| experience as a trans person participating in the trans
| community, it is completely divorced from the reality of
| the situation. People aren't "canceled" because they
| aren't ideologically pure. It's the opposite, actually.
|
| Trans people often need to grapple with "internalized
| transphobia". I experienced this firsthand when I
| realized I was trans and then felt a wave of disgust and
| horror. I felt it the first time I went to a trans group
| meetup and felt embarrassed to be seen with trans people.
| I felt it every time I was terrified of anyone knowing I
| was trans. I'm not alone in having these experiences, but
| my experiences were probably more on the extreme side.
| Almost no trans person has the luxury of being entirely
| free of internalized transphobia, and internalized
| transphobia can manifest in one's political beliefs. If
| we shunned every single person who ever disagreed with
| the "groupthink" then there wouldn't be anyone left. By
| necessity, we need to welcome and encourage the process
| of people learning and growing.
|
| That's a far cry from the idea that the trans community
| expels anyone who is critical of them.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I am afraid this is just an effect of the deeper problem -
| bestial behaviour emerged as norm. A fall towards low quality
| ethics, including intellectual thresholds, including thresholds
| of elaboration (meditated vs rushed).
|
| (The latter seems to also be very relevant to the student.)
|
| In anecdotal form bestial behaviours ("I was forced to fire you
| having received pressure from a priest because you are kind to
| that boy of a different cult" - real example, probably not
| rare, of an episode of 50 years ago in Europe) have probably
| always been common, but today they seem to be less of
| individuals and more of groups ("that nobody in a costume in
| tinytown" vs "the assumedly respectable entity"), less
| exceptions and more norm ("it happened" vs "it happens").
| lixtra wrote:
| > He asked via email: <<Do you engage in some degree of self-
| censorship? Do you think it would be too dangerous for me to open
| a Twitter account?>>
|
| > Although he received no response, he began tweeting in mid-
| March.
|
| Note: Sometimes, silence is a very loud answer.
| queuebert wrote:
| As a PhD advisor myself, this is telling. I always respond to
| all of my students' emails. This suggests a poor relationship
| between them already exists before the tweeting.
| [deleted]
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| Well, buried in the middle of this article is an important point:
|
| > In fact, as of the fall 2019 semester, Gerber had been
| officially enrolled only at the university in China, not at St.
| Gallen.
|
| So he was a Swiss person doing a PhD at a Chinese university. His
| relationship with the professor at the Swiss university was an
| unofficial one, so the word 'dismissal' here is pretty
| misleading. No information about what happened to his actual PhD
| program at the Chinese university that I noticed.
|
| The actual evidence of chinese influence?
|
| > She said she had received a message from a Chinese doctoral
| student doing research at a Canadian university.
|
| So, it sure sounds like some people had their feelings hurt.
|
| My totally made-up hypothesis on this article: honest reporter
| researched a story, realised it was pretty weak, then when they
| wrote it up shuffled things around a bit to give an exaggerated
| impact, but couldn't bring themselves to lie or leave out any
| facts.
| Krasnol wrote:
| I find it quite interesting that exactly this interpretation
| makes the rounds. Did you read that somewhere before? In German
| maybe?
| Igelau wrote:
| > So he was a Swiss person doing a PhD at a Chinese university
|
| He'd been advised by Gallen to deregister with a plan for how
| and when to re-enroll. It's pretty obvious in retrospect that
| they did this so they could have a trapdoor under him just in
| case something went bad in China.
| arendtio wrote:
| I think the message is a different one.
|
| More along the lines, 'Even in Switzerland the political
| pressure of China affects the freedom of speech'.
|
| The part that you leave out is that the university actually
| recommended to the student that he should terminate/suspend his
| enrollment in the first place. To me it looks like the
| university is using the fact that he wasn't enrolled anymore as
| some kind of damage control to distance itself from the events.
|
| You are right, the actual facts are not very strong (in terms
| of legal action), but I think it is a good 'I have nothing to
| hide...' example.
| [deleted]
| datameta wrote:
| Also the following account of his experience in China, which
| certainly served as a greater pretext than the tweets of an
| account with 10 followers:
|
| > A Chinese professor there told him that his Ph.D. topic was
| <<boring>> - a euphemism for being too critical of the
| government. As a part of his fellowship, he also had to attend
| classes, and says today he couldn't believe how much censorship
| took place in the course of everyday university life. When he
| submitted an essay on reeducation camps, he received the lowest
| grade possible. In an email to his professor in St. Gallen, he
| wrote: <<Maybe I've just been unlucky.>>
|
| I am deeply bothered by this totalitarian allergic reaction to
| criticism at even the lowest level. However as someone who is
| intimately familiar with life in the soviet union, this is not
| simply a case of bad luck if one takes actions that
| significantly increase one's radar signature to the censorship
| arm. If you are perceived as being "troublesome" by those who
| stand to lose much through being affiliated with someone openly
| critical of the regime, they may well take action to smooth out
| this political perturbance in their lives. They may do so
| whether they are staunch believers in the status quo or simply
| wishing to remain neutral at worst.
|
| Now I am not saying he should not have done what he did, but he
| should have been more aware of the possible outcomes to avoid
| being so blindsided.
|
| It would have been far more effective to relay his thoughts
| through more sympathetic channels. If the first person one's
| government criticism goes through is not a fan, that is a shaky
| start for one's efforts. A support network is needed. One can't
| shout into the void alone.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I wouldn't want to be his sponsor either. It just shows
| either a complete misunderstanding of the power dynamics of
| an outsider doing research in China, or poor judgement.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > I wouldn't want to be his sponsor either. It just shows
| either a complete misunderstanding of the power dynamics of
| an outsider doing research in China, or poor judgement.
|
| If your priorities are power dynamics, that would make
| sense. But there are other priorities, such as freedom of
| speech and open inquiry, which are more important, on which
| research and knowledge and freedom itself are based.
| mcguire wrote:
| Speaking as someone who has been through the academic dance
| party, I wouldn't want to attend an academic institution in
| Switzerland. I've heard of many breakups between students
| and their advisors, although this seems particularly ill
| advised, but I've never heard of the institution kicking
| the student out immediately. Or of the other faculty not
| finding a place for him.
|
| Their dedication to academic integrity is suspect.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| While I find your perspective and suggestions are valuable, I
| think we need to retire this idiom (which I've used myself
| without much thought):
|
| > Now I am not saying he should not have done what he did
|
| We need to stand up and say, he should speak out, he should
| have spoken out, seeing injustice and oppression.
| datameta wrote:
| I do see how I could have worded my general approval of his
| goals in a better manner.
| yosamino wrote:
| Almost. Since the "Neue Zuricher Zeitung" changed to their
| current editor-in-chief in - I wanna say 2015 - they have moved
| to towards a more politically right-wing, conservative
| position.
|
| From how this position is expressed in germany-austria-
| switzerland, "china=bad, universities too liberal, someone
| think of my country!" is not an uncommon sentiment.
| artiszt wrote:
| and certainly there's no reason why so many students from
| .cn, even .tw, do use, for instance, WeChat merely for
| 'clean', 'non-political', absolutely superficial messaging
| only but other Apps/Protocools speaking frankly -- ofc only
| to those whom they know and decided to trust
|
| get out there : speak to students, any level, from any spot
| in .cn, be that .HK, or any mainland-.cn spot
|
| if u succeed in establishing a bi-laterally trustet basis for
| discussion, well, then u achieved a lot in the first place
|
| it was pretty different some 7-10yrs back, give or take;
| depended much more on where ppl originated from, where
| relatives/friends in .cn were stationed
|
| it turned significantly worse -- from my pov, judged on the
| basis of experience of my real-life contacts -- i can pin-
| point the date : the day after that day when in .HK the
| Victoria Park got crowded peacefully for the first time and
| clips of it made top headlines, the other yr
|
| there is no argument of whatever twisted nature which could
| whitewash what's been going on for some time : in the arts,
| for instance, we do not have a single contact in .cn who not
| yet experienced what suppression of the .cn-govt kind can
| amount to. in specific fields of neuroscience, i can speak of
| myself, it worsened dramatically, in particular, when all the
| paper-mills, fakes & fraud in sciences and faked-publications
| widely made news progressively
|
| right now, as we speak, there are 3 ppl from .cn in that part
| only of the univ college bldg i'm currently in, who told me,
| that they perfectly well know what's expected from them not
| make their friends and relatives in .cn pay for their
| 'a-social' behaviour. on a regular basis they post some
| crappy pics to fb/ig but no personal comment other that
| 'happy b-day', or so.
|
| their wording, in private, on this whole issue of soc-nets
| and what to do, more importantly, what not to do, is way more
| blunt and precise : suffering is the term most frequently
| employed
|
| a very well-known artist, who sadly died the other month,
| spoke about his experiences in .cn when visting a friends
| art-circle in .cn for quite a few months. he was not the man
| to be easily scared. he'd worked a lot on what nazi-phekkers
| did, their ideology, their crimes. he had been attacked by
| french presidential candiates, amongst one not shy to send
| him her creeps to his doorstep interfering disturbingly with
| his installations & exhibitions [till they realised it
| boosted reception of his art but not their malicious intent].
| as he did put it, to him too, there was no big difference in
| what it must have been like in the 3rd reich and what he
| experienced over there.
|
| systems are much alike. badges, and brand names, may differ
| tho
|
| techniques might have improved, aims and malicious intent not
| graderjs wrote:
| Hold on a second. We can't be so quick to dismiss this juicy
| tidbit of potential Chinese nefariousness. We must think
| creatively about how we can utilize this story to further the
| fake narrative of Chinese evil. This is patriotic and
| essential, so rather than thinking critically (you
| counterrevolutionary you) just Thank Gawd, for any solid
| evidence we have to fortify the China Bogeyman Fake Narrative--
| that's just great. We can finally establish a casus belli, a
| fake pretext to hate China on. Hooray! Western democracies FTW!
| :p ;) xx
|
| _edit:_ Numquam ego cogito ergo sum adversus suffragator -
| chorum hn
| curiousgal wrote:
| Thank you! I am glad to see people are actually reading the
| articles. Last time this was published no one even bothered to
| note that there was no intervention from China whatsoever.
| Following the same logic a hotel worker losing their job
| because an American tourist complained can say that the United
| States got them fired..
|
| The comments critical of the CCP _in this thread_ prove that
| confirmation bias is alive and well. There are many things to
| critique about China obviously but this particular instance is
| not one of them.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Anecdotes are front page news at HN
| mcguire wrote:
| You may want to check the HN guidelines.
| Marvin_Martian wrote:
| Some comments might be off the mark, but the article itself
| is completly honest about the fact that they cannot prove
| that any chinese officials were even involved in this mess.
|
| The underlying criticism is more that the professor (and if
| you want to extrapolate swiss institutions as a whole)
| engaged in some "working towards the fuhrer" behaviour. She
| took very drastic steps (ruining this students career) on the
| basis of what would be in the interest of the CCP.
|
| And I would argue that this behaviour is very much
| incentivized by the CCP. Take a look at how censorhip within
| the country works: The laws are often quite vague, but
| enforcement is draconian. This leads people and institutions
| to guess what the government would want and act (self-censor)
| accordingly.
|
| One of the original journalists published another article two
| days later that voices this criticism more clearly:
| https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/china-und-die-hsg-wo-die-angst-
| re...
| anfelor wrote:
| Yes, there is no concrete intervention that the CCP did.
| Still, a supervisor broke off their contact with a promising
| student based on either the fear of retribution or personal
| feelings of nationalism. That culture is the product of CCP
| censorship and many people don't want it in the western
| world.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Honestly, if I were a professor and my PhD student was
| overly critical of the US online, I too would distance
| myself. Visa applications are hard enough as they are.
| samvega_ wrote:
| Not only overly critical, the tweets had racist content
| and memes as well.
| jkhdigital wrote:
| The article mentions a single tweet with a comic
| depiction that includes possibly exaggerated Asiatic
| features. Whether this kind of thing qualifies as
| "racist"... opinions may differ, especially since the
| article does not provide the original image.
| dash2 wrote:
| Is there is any evidence that any PhD student has ever
| found it hard to get a US visa because of criticizing the
| US or US policy?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| There have been cases of US deportations for even having
| US critical posts in your feed without making them.
|
| https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/8/27/incoming-
| freshm...
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/02/denied-entry-united-
| states...
| beaunative wrote:
| There are plenty Chinese students unable to renew their
| visa to the US for 'national security' reasons.
| dash2 wrote:
| Right, but is there is any evidence that any PhD student
| has ever found it hard to get a US visa because of
| criticizing the US or US policy?
| beaunative wrote:
| Border control / consulates check social media profiles,
| a policy implemented by Trump, I wonder why.
| nix23 wrote:
| I wonder why...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_i
| n_t...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_Un
| ite...
| BeetleB wrote:
| Eh - I knew Arab students who couldn't get their visa
| renewed for some years after Sep 11. They were involved
| in antiwar protests, etc. The fact that the US put many
| of its own anti-war activists on no-fly lists despite not
| having any evidence they were threats makes this pretty
| easy to believe.
| lmz wrote:
| Wouldn't asking for all your social media identities as
| part of the visa application create somewhat of a
| chilling effect?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That's the idea, I would guess.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| Is this close enough: https://www.universityworldnews.com
| /post.php?story=201908301... ?
| imajoredinecon wrote:
| Happy ending here: he was admitted to the country a week
| later, on his second attempt, in time to start classes.
|
| (I'm not making excuses for the---dire---state of our
| immigration policy as a whole. But I was happy to see
| that this particular case worked out in the end.)
| anfelor wrote:
| But unofficial relationships matter in science. For example, I
| am currently doing an unpaid internship in the hopes of getting
| a paper out of it. If the professor cancelled it, I might be
| left with nothing to show for months of hard work, similar to
| the guy in the story. That kind of thing is not uncommon at all
| at the PhD level.
| mcguire wrote:
| Not being registered at your home school while you are
| temporarily attending another is hardly rare either.
| [deleted]
| unishark wrote:
| There's information on his Swiss PhD program in the article.
| The Swiss University advised him to de-register so he could
| maintain years of eligibility or whatever, and the Swiss
| advisor continued to supervise him obviously. The University
| had told him that re-registering upon his return would be "no
| problem" with the support of the advisor. So he kind of got
| caught in a transitional stage where he has no options if a
| dispute with the advisor arises. Maybe it's not fair to
| criticize the University administration for this, but it's not
| accurate to simply describe him as unaffiliated and making up
| fake news or something.
|
| As for the Canadian student, the quotes from the professor
| herself are what say the complaints came "from China". Perhaps
| she meant from the Chinese student in Canada, but if so that's
| her error, not the author's.
| coliveira wrote:
| > the complaints came "from China"
|
| And that's the whole point of this piece of misinformation.
| "Came from China" doesn't mean that the country of China was
| involved, but that people in China involved didn't want this
| or that. It could similarly be a problem with news that "came
| from Switzerland", or that "came from USA", but of course the
| media wants to play the game of China (the country) as a bad
| actor.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It's not the people of China, who should be free to
| criticize their government and talk about any topic. It's
| the CCP that stops them and others worldwide.
| bmn__ wrote:
| It does not pass the smell test. This is not an error one
| would make. Imagine one gets an email from _Z, X-Y
| <xyz...@ucanuckistan.ac.ca>_, then why would one describe
| this as "emails (ed: plural!) from China"?
|
| My theory that fits the evidence given is that the professor
| is withholding the real "angry emails from China" because she
| thinks if those are published, then she definitely won't get
| a travel visum anymore and thus negatively impact her career.
| ChemSpider wrote:
| I agree. This take is supported by the fact that the Prof
| refuses to reveal the email address of the Canadian
| student. My guess is similar to yours. She received emails
| e. g. from a Chinese consulate but is not allowed to reveal
| that fact - so she made up this "Canadian student" story.
| krageon wrote:
| The likelihood that any consulate bothers itself to tell
| some uni student to shut up is extremely low.
| dbuder wrote:
| You are wrong. Every broken window is seen to.
| 1024core wrote:
| You don't know China then.
| ChemSpider wrote:
| Well, you would be surprised. It seems attempting to
| censor Twitter and other publications is part of their
| job. They even review German children books:
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/china-gets-german-childrens-book-
| about...
| delusional wrote:
| It's possible. It's also possible that this was the only
| email, but she got a warning from some Chinese government
| agency through another channel.
|
| There is of course also the distinct possibility that the
| professor was personally offended by the tweet (or imagined
| the offense taken) and made up the "emails from china" to
| make it seems more impactful.
| [deleted]
| tgiba wrote:
| The article definitely puts a spin on what actually happened.
| zupatol wrote:
| The swiss university had advised the student to be enrolled
| only China in order to make it easier for him to complete his
| PhD at the swiss university afterwards. The swiss university is
| now evading their moral responsibility by hiding behind the
| convenient legal situation.
|
| The professor explicitly cut ties with the student because she
| was afraid to lose her ability to get a visa for China. It's
| unclear how she came to this conclusion, but I don't see how
| she can conclude this just from a message she got from a
| student in Canada. Chinese authorities must have made it clear
| at some point that they are ready to punish either this or any
| slightest misstep like this. And it's really an insignificant
| incident: someone who is not officially her student, has
| basically no followers because he just created his account,
| tweets a little and deletes everything as soon as the professor
| finds a problem with it.
| volta83 wrote:
| Probably this also saved the student some fees as well.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Could be true. Unlike in Germany and many other European
| countries university studies are not free of charge in
| Switzerland. No idea about PhD.
| zahllos wrote:
| I'm not familiar with universities outside the ETH rules
| (ETHZ/EPFL only) but students are paid a salary at these
| universities and hold dual status as employees and
| students. I'm not sure if their tuition is waived. Even
| if they pay the same tuition as masters or bachelors
| students this is usually around 800-900 CHF per semester,
| the cost of 2-3 months health insurance. Not money you
| want to pay if you don't have to, but it isn't UK or US
| fees.
|
| However there are definitely time limits. You would find
| it hard to be enrolled on a doctoral programme for 6
| years or more especially if you aren't about to
| imminently graduate, and this is likely the main
| motivation behind the advice given the proposed 3 year
| break in China.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > students are paid a salary at these universities and
| hold dual status as employees and students
|
| OT: How much? Undergraduates too?
| gerbler wrote:
| In Swiss federal institutes grad students are paid but
| it's free for undergrads.
| Naracion wrote:
| Free for undergrads here meaning that they attend school
| for free (no tuition), or that they are not paid? Or
| both?
| gerbler wrote:
| For undergrads, no tuition fees and they are not paid
| beaunative wrote:
| "It depicted a comic character that had been altered and had
| stereotyped Chinese features, with yellow skin tone and slit
| eyes"
|
| In the report but often neglected. This is exactly the kind of
| student professors don't want. Obvious bias in the field of
| research, and what the heck honestly. If I were the professor I
| would not sponsor the reapplication either.
|
| I think the student is well aware he has a weak case, otherwise
| if it's so obvious that it's because of government intervention,
| even if his own professor doesn't want to supervise him, it
| shouldn't be difficult to find a new one (there are plenty, I
| mean PLENTY, researchers critical of the Chinese government, it
| shouldn't be hard to find one really), the academic field is
| actually quite protective towards students when it comes to undue
| influence from the government in general.
|
| Also, the institute he chose to apply to focus on "<<strengthen
| and deepen productive relations with China>>". It's not like
| they've made it unclear. It's quite clear they want to be
| 'productive' with China. There are plenty who don't, so why does
| this student applied there? It's like researching the adversary
| effect of CocoCola at a instutite 'promote understanding of the
| health benefits of carbonated drinks'. It's not like there is no
| choice.
| abbassi wrote:
| I'm happy she is dismissed. No student should be a propaganda
| tool, especially in a continent that Julian Assange is in jail in
| worse conditions (like those of Stalin) for doing journalism and
| revealing the war crimes of so-called democratic countries.
| bmn__ wrote:
| You seem to have misunderstood the article, she is not
| dismissed. Nothing of consequence happened to her for dropping
| the student.
| shard972 wrote:
| @dang, rule violation. Starting flame wars against china
| roenxi wrote:
| I don't want to dismiss Chinese influence as a threat to Western
| values; but we have to keep this in perspective. China is thrice
| the population of the US and has a comparatively sized (arguably
| a bit larger, arguably a bit smaller) economy.
|
| We expect their influence to catch up with their size and be
| comparable with the US government. The US government has long
| reach and a strong grip (eg, Assange, Snowden, the general
| pretence that their ongoing aggressive military posture is
| legitimate, synchronisation of global norms for intellectual
| property to American interests, Hollywood, etc).
| divbzero wrote:
| How many other countries would threaten visa denial against the
| supervisor of a student with 10 Twitter followers? I happen to
| think the student's tweets expressed extreme and unfounded
| views, but they hardly warrant such retaliation from one of the
| world's most powerful countries.
| perihelions wrote:
| The US itself denies visas over the political views of
| associated people. This is just one example, but a high-
| profile one:
|
| https://www.techspot.com/news/81644-harvard-student-
| denied-e... ( _" Harvard student was denied entry in the US
| over friends' social media activity"_)
|
| discussed here at
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20816774
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20848359
|
| One can only speculate how much worse the PRC's system is.
| The professor's fears are quite rational (I needn't say I
| wholeheartedly condemn her actions, and hope she's fired).
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _In a press release, Lopez says "this is a move so
| perverse, so grotesque as to defy explanation. Preventing
| people from entering the country because their friends
| critiqued the U.S. on social media shows an astounding
| disregard for the principle of free speech. The idea that
| Ajjawi should be prevented from taking his place at Harvard
| because of his own political speech would be alarming; that
| he should be denied this opportunity based on the speech of
| others is downright lawless."_
|
| I would replace the terms used by Lopez, from "astounding
| disregard for the principle of free speech" to "astounding
| disregard for the principle of justice". (Which, I rant,
| has been devastated in many places in the past 18 months.)
|
| Theoretically, though, I understand from some publications
| that there is an ongoing debate in national security
| agencies about the thresholds to be observed between false
| positives and false negatives. Meaning: not that the
| authorities believed such judgement sensible or fair, but
| they probably delegated their sense of fairness to a top-
| down mandate of "better safe than sorry". Which, in the
| encouraged alienation from good sense, creates these
| monstrosities.
| divbzero wrote:
| Thank you. I find this only slightly less disturbing than
| China's behavior. Stopping a visitor at the border for
| social posts of acquaintances is almost as bad as writing
| nasty emails threatening to do so.
|
| (Edit: Ismail was ultimately granted entry [1] but still
| shameful incident and disturbing that it could happen at
| all.)
|
| [1]: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/9/3/harvard-
| student-...
| guerrilla wrote:
| > Stopping a visitor at the border for social posts of
| acquaintances is almost as bad as writing nasty emails
| threatening to do so.
|
| Why is it not the same or worse? Now I suffer
| consequences for the totally legal actions of somone I
| know?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| kmfrk wrote:
| Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28060240.
| echopurity wrote:
| If HN won't stand up for racist or sexist tweets, who will?
| kepler1 wrote:
| Yes, some shame on the advisor, department/program for folding
| under such threats, but let me ask this:
|
| What was the guy seeking in posting accusatory political opinions
| about the Chinese government on Twitter? Attention, that's what.
| The thing that everyone on Twitter wants. He got it, and now is
| unhappy with the result. He's not totally without some
| responsibility here.
| wickedsickeune wrote:
| "She was dressed provocatively"
| kepler1 wrote:
| Why are you equating a guy posting opinions specifically
| designed to publicly criticize a country's government with a
| woman being taken advantage of against her will?
| phreeza wrote:
| Regardless of the merits of this case, I think it is interesting
| to also consider if the reverse could conceivably happen. Could a
| Chinese professor become worried about travel visa to the US
| because one of their students starts posting things critical of
| the US? I think for a Chinese professor the answer is perhaps not
| immediately obvious, but if you switch it to a professor from an
| Arabic country, I think the concern would definitely be valid. In
| fact I wouldn't be surprised if there is a lot of self-censorship
| like this going on already.
|
| Edit: in fact, in a different thread, perihelions posted an
| instance of such a visa denial happening in the US.
| fakedang wrote:
| I don't know how evident it is in the West, but what you
| mentioned for the US is very true, not just for Arab countries
| but also South Asian and African visitors. Around more than a
| decade back, when our school had planned for a trip to NASA, I
| remember the teachers and the visa guide aggressively asking
| all the students who had applied to scrub anything political
| off their social media and their public profiles elsewhere. The
| US visa officials are also the most hostile lot, and while I
| didn't experience much hassle during my interview (I guess
| because I worked in a white shoe firm which was sponsoring the
| visa), I was witness to seeing a Sikh family get intensely
| rattled and rammed during their process.
| [deleted]
| NotChina wrote:
| It wasn't us.
| dm319 wrote:
| The more I read of the article the less clear cut this looked.
| Someone has already mentioned the cartoon, but he had
| deregistered with the university, on the proviso that support
| from his phd mentor would allow him to return. When his mentor
| did not want to mentor him anymore he was actually registered at
| Wuhan rather than St Gallen, so I can see why this would make it
| complicated for him to continue there.
|
| Having done a PhD recently and knowing several who have, around
| the three year mark can be a difficult time for the student-
| mentor relationship. There is mention that his mentor claims the
| student had lost their temper with them prior to this happening,
| so I wouldn't be surprised if things were strained.
|
| Another aspect is the natonality of his mentor. The mentor may
| have family in China or need to continue strong links with China
| to continue their career in the field. Regardless of actual
| Chinese influence, the mentor may simply have been concerned of
| the impact the student's tweets would have on their career.
| Obviously still not ideal, but reflects more a 'chilling effect'
| that comes with heavy handed censorship.
| echopurity wrote:
| This is totally normal where I'm from...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/world/middleeast/professo...
| sebastian_89 wrote:
| This is classic western/European entitlement. How absolutely
| annoying.
| wickedsickeune wrote:
| Is it "entitlement" to say your opinion publicly?
| sebastian_89 wrote:
| It is entitlement to expect other cultures/political
| situations to treat you like the EU - and then be surprised
| when they don't.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Completely serious, any university that allows this to happen
| should lose accreditation and all public funding.
| queuebert wrote:
| As a faculty member and PhD advisor, let me offer my reading
| between the lines. The student and advisor did not get along
| already. The student went to China and found a girlfriend. The
| lockdown separated them. Hormones flared, exacerbating what was
| probably already a tense situation.
|
| The student was increasingly a problem (note the screaming at the
| advisor mentioned in TFA). The advisor decided that it was no
| longer worth the effort to maintain the unofficial relationship
| and broke the promise of supporting the student's future re-
| enrollment. Dealing with unprofessional students sucks. It's very
| hard to "fire" grad students for unproductivity or workplace
| issues, unless they are egregious. In this situation the advisor
| had a convenient out and took it.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > let me offer my reading between the lines
|
| But the rest is entirely fabricated and ignores the clear
| statements of the advisor themself, which is that they didn't
| want to offend China and would for that reason terminate the
| relationship.
|
| > the advisor had a convenient out and took it
|
| How is it a convenient out? 'CCP pressure' doesn't sound like a
| convenient reason. The advisor could have pulled the 'you're no
| long enrolled' trick at any time.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| There was no CCP pressure. Only a Chinese Phd student in
| Canada who forwarded the supposedly racist meme to the
| advisor.
| amrcnimgrnt wrote:
| Well I got my PhD, so let me read between your lines ([1]).
|
| Faculty have little fiefdoms and they expect students to live
| on salaries bellow minimum wage. If the advisor is sub-par
| (i.e. the university made a mistake hiring them) it's
| incredibly difficult to change advisors without poisoning the
| relationship with other faculty members.
|
| Dealing with sub-par professors sucks. Some are not too bright.
| Others sexually harass the female students. All are protected
| by the moat the university builds around them.
|
| [1] I'll admit it's a bit weird to see a professor that I'm
| assuming given the forum, is in a tech field "read between the
| lines" instead of engaging the facts.
| queuebert wrote:
| You're entirely correct. Academia is broken is so many ways.
| A lot of my colleagues are wastes of space and some are
| indeed harmful. I don't think I'm a great advisor either. No
| one teaches us how to advise students.
|
| My take is based entirely on facts of the article interpreted
| through an advisor's lens rather than that of a journalist
| trying to get clicks.
| ablearcher83 wrote:
| The fact that the advisor in the OP changed their stories
| multiple times indicates duplicity. Your inability to see
| that, coupled with an abrupt allegation against the
| journalist suggests self-deception
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > a journalist trying to get clicks
|
| Now you've also fabricated something about the journalist,
| their motive and character. Do you have any factual basis
| for that? What do you know about the journalist?
| amrcnimgrnt wrote:
| You know what, I owe you an apology for this:
|
| "[1] I'll admit it's a bit weird to see a professor that
| I'm assuming given the forum, is in a tech field "read
| between the lines" instead of engaging the facts."
|
| I'll keep it up in my comment because I despise it when ppl
| scrub clean what they wrote.
|
| Either way, sorry for making it personal.
| queuebert wrote:
| HN is the best people. Thanks for the apology and no hard
| feelings here.
|
| And I'm sorry if you had some bad experiences in grad
| school. Some of us, at least, are trying to be better.
| ChemSpider wrote:
| Your take is not supported by any of the evidence. The email
| exchanges (as seen by the newspaper) show a friendly
| relationship up until the tweets.
| queuebert wrote:
| Quote from the article: "The professor went on to explain
| that the relationship of trust had already been strained,
| because Gerber had <<lost his temper>> during a conversation
| a year earlier, and had told her that he no longer wanted to
| continue his doctorate at St. Gallen in any form, and no
| longer needed her as a doctoral supervisor."
| Marvin_Martian wrote:
| Thats not evidence. That is just a claim made by the
| professor, which is denied by the former student and which,
| according the the article, is not reflected in the tone of
| the emails exchanged at this time, either.
| queuebert wrote:
| Isn't eye-witness testimony considered evidence? Maybe
| the professor is lying, true. But also professional
| emails tend to be more cordial than in-person
| conversations. In terms of motives, the student has more
| motive to lie than the professor, since the professor has
| nothing at stake.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The student has factual evidence, the emails.
|
| > Isn't eye-witness testimony considered evidence?
|
| C'mon.
| ablearcher83 wrote:
| > "Ultimately, it may even turn out that I won't be able
| to get a visa to China because of you. This is definitely
| going too far, and I would have to end our advisory
| relationship"
|
| At this point, you're misrepresenting the article
| completely.
| lixtra wrote:
| The nice tone of the professor's emails (after the run-
| in) could be also proof of her goodwill. While student
| showed his lack of self control on twitter.
|
| This is just a different aspect of the same facts.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > The nice tone of the professor's emails (after the run-
| in) could be also proof of her goodwill.
|
| What was nice about it?
|
| > student showed his lack of self control on twitter
|
| I don't see a lack of control on Twitter. The student
| wasn't talking to the professor, and there is nothing
| inappropriate about their Twitter comments as reported,
| beyond the cartoon which IIRC the advisor didn't cite.
| romwell wrote:
| I'd trust an email record over he-said / she-said claims.
|
| "Losing temper" is quite vague; and evidently, it didn't
| warrant terminating the relationship until the tweets
| happened.
|
| Let's not pretend the timing was a coincidence. The
| relationship was clearly terminated _because of_ the
| tweets, which has nothing to do with the professor.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| That was after the fact, with no evidence, after Gerber had
| contested the separation. The emails contemporaneous with
| the events clearly show differently.
| hermitsings wrote:
| Imagine CCP becoming world leader.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| What makes you think they are not?
|
| Is it different or worse from the US foreign policy of "lets
| kill brown people half way across the world"?
|
| The anti-China rhetoric has to stop somewhere.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| The US has a lot of problems and bad behavior. Yet we can
| talk about it without worrying if the us govt is pressuring
| our employer to fire us, without worrying about the safety of
| family members & friends living in the us will be rounded up.
|
| China is not that place. It's not anti-Chinese rhetoric to
| point our reality. China is the place where people wonder
| when the authorities are coming to take you to the re-
| education camp, hopefully not to be sterilized.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/magazine/uyghur-
| muslims-c...
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/the-uyghur-chronicles/
|
| https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/09/uighur-muslim-
| detention-c...
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > The US has a lot of problems and bad behavior
|
| Hahaha.
|
| > China is the place where people wonder when the
| authorities are coming to take you to the re-education
| camp, hopefully not to be sterilized.
|
| You must be joking. Really. A link to NYT and theAtlantic?
| Stand up comedy might just be your thing.
| another_story wrote:
| This is not really the place for this sort of response.
| nickik wrote:
| Hopeful they at least dont want make endless war in the middle
| east.
| guerrilla wrote:
| That would be very unnatural. States make war for their
| interests.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_realism
| nickik wrote:
| Fighting in the Middle East is literally the exact opposite
| of what Neorealists believe.
|
| John Mearsheimer opposed to these idiotic middle east wars
| and has been for a long time.
| almosttoolate wrote:
| You have to understand that any platform that deletes or
| undermine your words does not deserve your patronage. Get off
| Twitter and all abhorent anti-social media. Go outside, see
| nature.
| kqvamxurcagg wrote:
| I think the moderators should carefully examine those accounts
| posting in this thread. There seems to be elements of counter
| intelligence or information warfare.
| ipnon wrote:
| >Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling,
| brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion
| and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email
| hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > In the United States too, a quarter of the country's Confucius
| Institutes have been shut down in recent years. Universities no
| longer wanted to give legitimacy to an institution that defended
| fundamentally different values.
|
| Well, that makes a statement about the purpose of a university.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| The Confucius Institutes are part of the CCP's "unrestricted
| warfare" program.
|
| In summary, it's a way to use non-kinetic warfare against
| opponents, to gain as much as possbible before a shooting war
| is necessary.
|
| The fundamentally different value mentioned is Communism.
|
| The CCP has been at war with the US since the Korean Wars and
| the Straits Conflicts. US politicians somehow overlooked that
| until Trump/Pompeo responded to the CCP threat. (The Stinger
| missile ended the second Straits conflict - Taiwan was able to
| blow CCP's air force out of the sky.)
|
| The CCP is so virulently anti-US that even Russia refused to
| cooperate with China's requests.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The fundamentally different value mentioned is Communism.
|
| Right, because American universities are so hostile to
| communism.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| Correct, US universities are Marxist/Communist.
|
| That doesn't mean we want even more of that influence on-
| campus.
|
| FYI: NYT deleted their CCP-sponsored articles in 2020.
| There were dozens of submarine articles paid for by the
| CCP, which is being covered up. Before the coverup, the NYT
| was proud of their role as a historical news record.
|
| This shows the corrosion of values and truth when working
| with Communists.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| As a DoD contractor, Navy veteran with my submarine warfare
| qual
|
| This is such fucking bullshit
| redis_mlc wrote:
| I'd like some examples.
|
| Note that information on the Cold War with the CCP has been
| suppressed for decades.
|
| You may not know that the CCP asked (demanded) Russia to
| attack the US instead of removing its nuclear weapons from
| Cuba, or that Russia planned to nuke Beijing over a border
| conflict in 1969, but the US asked them to stop.
|
| Or that the CCP has border conflicts with every single one
| of its neighbors today. Since the conflict is over water, I
| can guarantee war within 5 years.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| The university system developed inside the cultural western
| tradition, it didn't fall from the sky. It most definitely has
| to self-preserve. But i m curious what you think the purpose of
| a university is
| jorblumesea wrote:
| "values" here being basically a proxy instrument of the CCP and
| a surveillance network to keep Chinese nationals in line.
| Animats wrote:
| More have been shut down than that.[1] They're a combination of
| a propaganda operation and a surveillance system for Chinese
| students in the US.
|
| [1]
| https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/how_many_confucius_institu...
| _Microft wrote:
| Are you familiar with the ,,paradox of tolerance" already? You
| can read about it here:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
|
| First paragraph copied for your convenience:
|
| ,,The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant
| without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized
| or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the
| seemingly paradoxical idea that in order to maintain a tolerant
| society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."
| rgoulter wrote:
| I think that summary misses out how much Popper argues should
| be tolerated. e.g. in the quote in the article, Popper
| writes:
|
| > In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we
| should always suppress the utterance of intolerant
| philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational
| argument and keep them in check by public opinion,
| suppression would certainly be most unwise.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| That's a tactical, not moral, distinction.
| [deleted]
| Tade0 wrote:
| It's a paradox if one sees it as a moral attitude, but it's
| actually a peace treaty.
| almosttoolate wrote:
| Please realize that any forum that deletes or undermines the
| words of its users is not worth your time nor patronage. Twitter
| is the antithesis of free speech. Stop using it. Period.
| paulcarroty wrote:
| > The writer accuses Gerber of a <<racist attack on the Chinese
| people.>>
|
| Interesting, how Chinese people reacts to Winnie Pooh cartoons?
| Also as "racist attack" or "Nazism threat"?
| amrcnimgrnt wrote:
| To be clear, what happened to this kid is horrible and just
| demonstrates that we have to get serious on this problem.
|
| However this comment annoyed me:
|
| "<<I'm in Switzerland, not China,>> Gerber replied. <<I can say
| what I want here.>>"
|
| You can tell this kid grew up in the la-la land that is the West,
| particularly Europe. I find this comment to be an infuriating mix
| anivete and patronizing.
|
| For the naivete Switzerland is a landlocked country of 10 million
| people. Tough guys, great companies, great economy, sure. But a
| minnow. China can and does throw it's weight against people in
| countries like this.
|
| For the patronizing part of the comment, it's the Western
| attitude of "this can't happen here", or "that will never get to
| be so bad" typical of people that are 70 years removed from
| tyranny (I'm Western myself, but my parents lived through a
| dictatorship).
|
| This is the attitude that allows people in the West to
| compartmentalize all the known abuses (snowden leaks, NSA spying
| on European leaders, Big Tech squashing our rights, etc) and live
| in a permanent state of double-think.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Wow.
|
| Patronizing: you know what's patronizing? The notion that this
| kid simply doesn't understand the realpolitik. Of course he
| does: it just punched him in the face. He's fighting it. I
| respect him for that.
|
| Infuriating: you know what's infuriating? The person who claims
| to share the values this guy is standing up for but can't stop
| trash-talking him.
|
| Naivete: you know what's naive? Thinking that rolling over and
| accepting realpolitik bullying is going to make things better.
|
| La-la land: you know where that is? It's right between cynicism
| and self-loathing. Of course things can get bad here! That's
| why we need to fight whenever they slide in that direction! Of
| course the West isn't a bastion of moral purity above all
| reproach! That doesn't excuse China's behavior, it doesn't make
| them the lesser evil, and it doesn't mean they aren't worth
| fighting!
|
| Stop navel-gazing and stand up for what you believe in. At the
| very least, cheer on those who do.
| amrcnimgrnt wrote:
| I have no problem cheering on those who take on known risks.
| But a person who takes on risks they are ignorant off are not
| heroes. They're cannon fodder for internet chatterers who
| cheer them to their doom. They are to be pitied.
|
| I'm under no illusions that something has to be done to
| contain the rising totalitarians around the world. But I
| won't send a delusional noob to fight it for me.
|
| As to your comments about self-loathing. I love the West. I
| just don't think self-immolation through twitter is that
| effective. He's changed nothing for the better and lost
| everything.
|
| But we agree on something. He just got punched in the face w/
| realpolitik
| geekfun wrote:
| Oh, what u r saying here is patronizing. Before you start to
| criticize others or another country, shouldn't you do some
| basic justification or research. Free speech is not about
| just blindly saying whatever u want. That's irresponsible.
| Ppl should be responsible for whatever they say as grown man.
| When you are blaming China's behavior or any other country's
| behavior, do u see any proof abt those so-called bad
| behaviors? Or u just read some news and followed whatever ppl
| are saying. In addition, every country has its own problems
| and own culture. Try to respect others first. If there is
| improvement other should have, what is needed is constructive
| suggestion instead of patronizing blame. Indeed I am
| disappointed abt this student's behavior as he has studied in
| China for sometime and he made friends in China as well, he
| should have a good understanding abt the life there and would
| understand what had happened there during COVID. He could
| have been more responsible for what he tweeted.
| slapfrog wrote:
| The GP reads like concern-trolling more than anything else.
| It doesn't seem sincere to me at all.
| ablearcher83 wrote:
| Agreed, it's classic concern-trolling.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > Patronizing: you know what's patronizing? The notion that
| this kid just doesn't understand the realpolitik. Of course
| he does: it just punched him in the face. He's fighting it. I
| respect him for that.
|
| I disagree. His Chinese girlfriend was begging him to stop,
| but he carried on. It's either hubris or not realizing what
| China is willing to do to stop people from criticizing it. He
| was also enrolled in a Chinese university, and was
| undoubtedly warned about criticizing the government.
| jeswin wrote:
| So should he just shut up, then? It's scary if most people
| feel that way.
|
| There was also no risk to his GF. At worst, the
| relationship ends - it's not like the CCP is going to go
| after her (she did ask him to stop).
| nelsondev wrote:
| How do you know there was no risk to the GF? The article
| mentions she asked him to stop because she feared
| retaliation.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > So should he just shut up, then? It's scary if most
| people feel that way.
|
| If his goal was to complete his studies at the Chinese
| university or maintain a relationship with his doctoral
| advisor who has ties to China, or to not make life for
| his girlfriend and her family difficult, yes.
|
| I don't agree with the methods of the CCP to silence
| dissent, but that's reality. Nothing will change on
| account of this guy.
| [deleted]
| krageon wrote:
| > it's not like the CCP is going to go after her
|
| This is not a reasonable assumption and once it's throw
| out it becomes clear this boy was endangering others as
| well as himself by doing something ill-advised and
| unplanned.
| CinzanoBianco wrote:
| "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of
| the people who are evil, but because of the people who
| don't do anything about it."
|
| -- Albert Einstein
| slapfrog wrote:
| > _this boy_
| brigandish wrote:
| I'm not one for turning up my nose to criticising
| government's like China's but the reality is that freedom
| of speech is not an important aspect to Chinese society
| (including many others) and if one wants to work there,
| travel there, and not endanger people there as he has
| done with his girlfriend's family, then one needs to at
| least _consider_ the consequences for critical speech and
| whether they 're worth bearing.
|
| > There was also no risk to his GF. At worst, the
| relationship ends - it's not like the CCP is going to go
| after her (she did ask him to stop).
|
| I'm not sure why you think being so apparently reasonable
| is also something her government and its supporters care
| about?
| mcguire wrote:
| " _...the reality is that freedom of speech is not an
| important aspect to Chinese society (including many
| others)..._ "
|
| Including Switzerland, it seems.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I'm a bit conflicted on this story for the same reason. One the
| one hand I agree what happened to him was horrible, but on the
| other hand it's almost to be expected. The kid was enrolled in
| a Chinese university and decided to criticize the CCP on the
| internet under his own name. So yeah what happened to him was
| horrible, but not unexpected.
| chmod600 wrote:
| This news is incremental, sure, but still news. If stuff like
| this had been happening 20 years ago, many countries would
| probably have a very different trading posture with China.
|
| It's important to report on this kind of thing once in a
| while, even if no individual instance is shocking. It builds
| up into a major problem.
| usr1106 wrote:
| It's not suprising that China acts like this.
|
| The message of the article is that a renowned Swiss
| university cowardly bows to China's oppression instead of
| guaranteing their students (not legally, but morally their)
| their democratic rights. Cynics might say not suprising
| either. Switzerland is somewhat infamous for its silent Nazi
| support while formally neutral in WWII.
| rob_c wrote:
| Here, here.
|
| You sir have earned 1xvirtual-pint.
|
| Very well said.
| amrcnimgrnt wrote:
| lol, what's that?
| rob_c wrote:
| Given I'm agreeing with the poster and thanking him for his
| contribution I guess I have to state for those who don't
| understand the topic.
|
| This is not irony but something that apparently doesn't
| translate well out of Northern Britain...
|
| I'm guessing this site has something against buying a pint of
| beer for someone you agree with?
| wk_end wrote:
| People on HN generally don't like content-free "this"- or
| "+1"-style comments. If you don't have anything to add
| that'll further the conversation, upvote and move on.
| [deleted]
| ohbleek wrote:
| This comment reads like an attempt at poorly executed
| propaganda. The comparisons drawn are not only inaccurate but
| borderline nonsense.
| nova22033 wrote:
| _Big Tech squashing our rights_
|
| How exactly has big tech squashed your rights?
| jeswin wrote:
| What I find frustrating is discussing something relatively
| trivial when talking about a totalitarian state.
|
| I am not from the West, and I do wonder if people bring up
| these just to be polite or to sound impartial.
| rob_c wrote:
| It's usually to point out commonalities to get people to
| emote when having a conversation I find.
|
| Yes comparing the scales of the Chinese sensorship to
| googles deplatforming of uncomfortable topics is not nice.
|
| But explaining how one can lead to the other also explains
| to people in the west why something is bad. Especially when
| people would readily sleep walk into enabling technologies
| that would enable state sensorship at a level that would
| concern everyone.
| phenkdo wrote:
| The perfect is not the enemy of the good. "The west" is
| definitely not a paragon of virtue, all its flaws
| notwithstanding, is order of magnitude (or two) better than a
| CCP style government. I would much rather live in "the west",
| where i am, than in China.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > NSA spying on European leaders
|
| Of course they are. That's a big part of their job. Does that
| offend anyone? It's reciprocal: I assume if Biden calls Pelosi
| to talk about the weather almost every country is recording the
| call (assuming it's unencrypted).
| esquivalience wrote:
| Another reading of this is: "freedom of speech is protected in
| this country". And that is true, not the fairytale you suggest
| it to be.
| [deleted]
| varjag wrote:
| Freedom of speech is protected only so much as the protection
| is enforced. It is not some sort of fundamental law. With
| weak-kneed politicians and indifferent population it
| inevitably erodes.
| esquivalience wrote:
| It actually is. It's a fundamental human right under the
| European Convention on Human Rights (to which Switzerland
| is a party) , Art. 10:
|
| "ARTICLE 10 Freedom of expression 1. Everyone has the right
| to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom
| to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and
| ideas without interference by public authority and
| regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent
| States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting,
| television or cinema enterprises. 2. The exercise of these
| freedoms, since it carries with it duties and
| responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities,
| conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by
| law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the
| interests of national security, territorial integrity or
| public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for
| the protection of health or morals, for the protection of
| the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the
| disclosure of information received in confidence, or for
| maintaining the authority and impartiality of the
| judiciary."
| cardosof wrote:
| "Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons!" - Pompey the Great
| edbob wrote:
| "Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China
| enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of
| association, of procession and of demonstration."
|
| "Article 36. Citizens of the People's Republic of China
| enjoy freedom of religious belief..."
|
| "Article 37. The freedom of person of citizens of the
| People's Republic of China is inviolable..."
|
| "Article 49. Marriage, the family, and mother and child
| are protected by the state..."
|
| Just meaningless words on a page. To be completely fair,
| the text does imply that the above isn't worth a wooden
| nickel in practice:
|
| "Article 51. The exercise by citizens of the People's
| Republic of China of their freedoms and rights may not
| infringe upon the interests of the state, of society and
| of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights
| of other citizens."
|
| The European Convention on Human Rights has a similar
| clause (which you quoted) that allows the state to
| eliminate one's rights "for the protection of health or
| morals". It seems that "human rights" are mainly there to
| make the state seem legitimate. They "protect" humans
| against the state for exactly as long as the state
| allows.
| sidlls wrote:
| Yes, article 51 that you quoted more or less makes any
| other article completely irrelevant. That's the whole
| point. In western countries there really isn't an
| equivalent to Article 51 in any meaningful sense. China's
| government is an oppressive dictatorship _by design_. It
| makes a big difference.
| varjag wrote:
| I am quite aware of declaration of human rights.
|
| It is not a fundamental law in scientific sense, i.e. it
| is not a natural property of any kind. You want freedom
| of speech, fine, but you have to fight to get it and keep
| it alive. Otherwise it becomes just another unenforceable
| legalistic quirk like beheading for insulting the Queen
| is today.
| jkhdigital wrote:
| > You want freedom of speech, fine, but you have to fight
| to get it and keep it alive.
|
| This needs to be said more often... rights cannot be
| reduced to a "declaration" or a "bill". They are social
| constructs that wither away and die without constant
| social reinforcement, both formal and informal.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Rights aren't "social constructs" if they're natural
| rights, that is, those that follow from the nature of
| what it means to be a human being. Those are recognized,
| not "constructed". These must be distinguished from those
| things that are merely asserted as rights and that people
| like to make up to suit their agendas.
|
| But, given that, natural rights can be violated and fail
| to be protected from those who would do so. So just
| because something is natural in nature does not mean it
| cannot be suppressed. It is natural and proper for human
| beings to speak, but speech can be suppressed. So yes, a
| society that stops protecting rights will see more
| violations of them. Declarations are magic incantations.
| You need power and authority to back them up.
|
| (Also, w.r.t. freedom of speech, I am here not assuming
| unrestricted speech and "expression"; this has never
| existed and cannot exist and so on. Rights are not
| absolute: you can forfeit even your right to life by
| murdering another human being, for example. Thus rights
| must be understood in the context of justice.)
| Cederfjard wrote:
| > Rights aren't "social constructs" if they're natural
| rights, that is, those that follow from the nature of
| what it means to be a human being.
|
| Are you saying that you have achieved perfect
| understanding of this? I think that implies a
| sophistication way beyond were we are as a species today.
| varjag wrote:
| Humanity for the longest time existed without any hint of
| universal inalienable rights. Calling them that is
| aspirational. They are not "natural" in any way except
| being the norm in very recent social reality of certain
| fortunate parts of the world.
| arodyginc wrote:
| I think the OP meant that it isn't a fundamental law like
| in physics, so it doesn't 'enforce' itself
| amrcnimgrnt wrote:
| See Article 261 of the Swiss penal code.
| amrcnimgrnt wrote:
| I didn't suggest anything, generally I avoid suggestion. It's
| pusillanimous.
|
| Switzerland has a lot of freedom, certainly compared to China
| and other European countries. It's without a doubt my
| favorite country, one I'd want to live in. But, as we're
| finding out, the "free speech protections" that we drone on
| about are only as good as we are willing to insist on.
|
| "freedom of speech is protected in this country" is
| meaningless if it only restricts government from silencing
| its citizens. Companies and powerful interest groups can and
| do restrict the speech of people, and I don't see the Swiss
| government rushing to pass laws to force Google to stop
| censoring.
|
| Anyway, freedom of speech protections in Switzerland are not
| that good compared to, say, the US. You can't, for example,
| criticize islam (I hate when people _mock_ islam, btw).
|
| From Article 261 of the Swiss Penal Code:
|
| "Any person who publicly and maliciously insults or mocks the
| religious convictions of others, and in particularly their
| belief in God, or maliciously desecrates objects of religious
| veneration, any person who maliciously prevents, disrupts or
| publicly mocks an act of worship, the conduct of which is
| guaranteed by the Constitution, or any person who maliciously
| desecrates a place or object that is intend- ed for a
| religious ceremony or an act of worship the conduct of which
| is guaranteed by the Constitution, is liable to a monetary
| penalty.277"
|
| So Charlie Hebdo (who are disgusting, btw) should have been
| fined in Switzerland. Btw, I'm pretty sure a Zurich museum
| would have no trouble displaying artwork depicting Mary as a
| whore. Not unless muslims, rightly, get upset about the
| depiction of the most revered woman in Islam.
|
| But it gets worse:
|
| "Any person who publicly incites hatred or discrimination
| against a person or a group of persons on the grounds of
| their race, ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation,
| any person who publicly disseminates ideologies that have as
| their object the systematic denigration or defamation of that
| person or group of persons, any person who with the same
| objective organises, encourages or participates in propaganda
| campaigns, any person who publicly denigrates or
| discriminates against another or a group of persons on the
| grounds of their race, ethnic origin, religion or sexual
| orientation in a manner that violates human dignity, whether
| verbally, in writing or pictorially, by using gestures,
| through acts of aggression or by other means, or any person
| who on any of these grounds denies, trivialises or seeks
| justification for genocide or other crimes against humanity,
| any person who refuses to provide a service to another on the
| grounds of that person's race, ethnic origin, religion or
| sexual orientation when that service is intended to be
| provided to the general public, is liable to a custodial
| sentence not exceeding three years or to a monetary penalty."
|
| You can drive a Mac truck through that. What does "inciting
| discrimination" mean? Are the people campaigning to have the
| veil banned in Switzerland not inciting discrimination?
|
| And, for the record, I despise people who mock any and all
| religions (although valid criticism is very important). But
| criminalizing mockery and claiming to believe in freedom of
| speech? That's rich.
| belter wrote:
| Sounds wonderful. Would then my religious convictions be
| protected in Switzerland according to law or does my deity
| has to contact the Swiss government somehow ?
|
| Because I am a Pastafarian, and I can't stand the abuse and
| mockery anymore. I was thinking of emigrating to
| Switzerland.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
| bobthechef wrote:
| Both you and I know this is provocation, so there's no
| point in pretending otherwise. But sure, it is an
| argument in favor of the confessional state. Liberal
| societies are de facto confessional states anyway, it's
| just that the liberal religion (which Rawls can't quite
| seem to acknowledge as one, but deploys without scruples)
| by which all others are measured and restricted is not
| named as one.
| belter wrote:
| I up voted your comment...
| bobthechef wrote:
| > So Charlie Hebdo (who are disgusting, btw) should have
| been fined in Switzerland.
|
| Charlie Hebdo is indeed disgusting. They're nihilists from
| a cultural milieu that know no moral limits. There is a
| difference, as you say, between rational criticism of Islam
| and its mockery and charity is a pretty good way to
| distinguish between good and bad behavior (i.e., even
| assuming Islam is terribly flawed, it is uncharitable to
| mock it in this way given what it is, but charitable to
| criticize it).
|
| > Btw, I'm pretty sure a Zurich museum would have no
| trouble displaying artwork depicting Mary as a whore.
|
| You mean like what the Talmud says about Mary, the same
| Talmud that depicts Jesus boiling in excrement?
|
| The same nihilistic cultural milieu hates Christianity most
| of all. You think the mockery of Islam was bad? Look at how
| they depict Christ in those comics. It's far worse as a
| matter of the kinds of things they depict as well as the
| subject of the depiction (Mohammad is just a prophet, Jesus
| is the incarnation of the Logos, of God Himself, thus we're
| talking about the difference between irreverent desecration
| and outright blasphemy and sacrilegious imagery). But
| hatred of Christianity has become normalized and made
| acceptable by this nihilistic cultural milieu and
| Christians have been intimidated into acceptance and
| spineless in their resistance which is why it persists with
| impunity. Muslims have been known to go in the opposite
| extreme.
|
| > But criminalizing mockery and claiming to believe in
| freedom of speech? That's rich.
|
| Freedom of speech was never unrestricted. It cannot be. The
| days of that libertarian anything-goes thinking is dead
| even among the same Mother Jones type lefists who wanted it
| back when they were still dope-smoking boomers. The
| question isn't whether you restrict speech, but how you
| restrict it and what you restrict and whether it is good.
| Without a specific case in mind, I would generally rather
| risk being a bit too permissive than being too restrictive,
| greater liberality in what is permitted and greater
| conservatism in how law is interpreted, but prudential
| judgement is key.
| eplanit wrote:
| But, many (predominantly on the Left) are now seeing liberal
| free speech as outmoded. Though he's not a serious person,
| former Prince Harry (who, with his wife, use their celebrity
| to champion Progressive causes) recently called the 1st
| Amendment "bonkers"[1]. Even The Atlantic publishes its
| doubts about it.[2]
|
| My stepfather grew up Jewish in Germany in the early 20th
| century. He was 13 years old when Hitler became Chancellor.
| His family got out, and he made his way to the US. He told me
| very sternly "don't ever think that it can't happen here".
| Those words stuck with me, and seem now more relevant than
| ever.
|
| [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/prince-harry-calls-
| firs...
|
| [2]
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/free-
| sp...
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > even former Prince Harry recently called the 1st
| Amendment "bonkers"
|
| Shocking!
|
| I'm starting to think we Americans are going to have to
| overthrow the British monarchy to protect our rights!
|
| > Even The Atlantic publishes its doubts about it.
|
| Unlike the Prince Henry thing (who cares), I read this one.
|
| The Atlantic says the exact opposite of what you say it
| does. It starts and ends firmly defending American style
| free speech. Full stop.
|
| In the middle it talks about how European style free speech
| allows for suppressing hate speech, and that there are
| costs and benefits to that approach. He explains that calls
| for such restrictions here cannot be dismissed out of hand
| as insane but that they have to be contended with. He then
| does so, arguing against restrictions. "Free Speech isn't
| Free" is just pointing out the often overlooked costs to
| totally free speech.
|
| I hesitate to call people bad-faith actors, but in general
| the "article says the literal opposite of what I claim it
| does" is a giant red flag.
|
| (Edit: I went back and read the Prince thing. I dismissed
| it because "who cares", but then I figured if you
| misrepresented the Atlantic article that badly I should
| check it out. What he was talking about was American vs.
| British libel laws, not general free speech. In Britain, it
| is much easier to sue for libel to the point that
| celebrities often sue international publications there.
| This protection in Britain especially protects politicians
| and royalty. In the US, it is almost impossible to win a
| libel suit against a news organization, especially if the
| person suing is a public official. This is based on New
| York Times vs. Sullivan, a first amendment case. )
| kps wrote:
| A 'better' Atlantic article in this sense is
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/what-
| covid... subheaded "In the debate over freedom versus
| control of the global network, China was largely correct,
| and the U.S. was wrong."
| mcguire wrote:
| Context is a thing.
|
| " _Two events were wake-up calls. The first was Edward
| Snowden's revelations in 2013 about the astonishing
| extent of secret U.S. government monitoring of digital
| networks at home and abroad. The U.S. government's
| domestic surveillance is legally constrained, especially
| compared with what authoritarian states do. But this is
| much less true of private actors. Snowden's documents
| gave us a glimpse of the scale of surveillance of our
| lives by U.S. tech platforms, and made plain how the
| government accessed privately collected data to serve its
| national-security needs._
|
| " _The second wake-up call was Russia's interference in
| the 2016 election. As Barack Obama noted, the most
| consequential misinformation campaign in modern history
| was "not particularly sophisticated--this was not some
| elaborate, complicated espionage scheme." Russia used a
| simple phishing attack and a blunt and relatively limited
| social-media strategy to disrupt the legitimacy of the
| 2016 election and wreak still-ongoing havoc on the
| American political system. The episode showed how easily
| a foreign adversary could exploit the United States' deep
| reliance on relatively unregulated digital networks. It
| also highlighted how legal limitations grounded in the
| First Amendment (freedom of speech and press) and the
| Fourth Amendment (privacy) make it hard for the U.S.
| government to identify, prevent, and respond to
| malicious_ "
| newbamboo wrote:
| Disagree with your disagreement. The Atlantic article is
| casting shade on free speech. One only needs to read the
| headline, which is rightly or wrongly what most eyeballs
| will ever see. If a headline is "iPhones have a lot of
| problems" and then body of the article explains that
| "despite that they are still pretty good" then it fair to
| characterize it as the parent poster did IMO. No person
| ever has made the claim that free speech doesn't have
| costs.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| 1) Talking about costs isn't casting shade. And the
| article _is_ talking about the costs (and why they are
| worth it).
|
| 2) It's not a hot-take that titles don't agree with their
| article's contents. The solution to that is to fix
| headlines, not to plug our ears and only read headlines
| and claim nuance is impossible.
|
| 3) Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s
| _law_of_headline... for widely known example of (2)
|
| > No person ever has made the claim that free speech
| doesn't have costs.
|
| Considering the entire article was about how people kept
| responding to nuanced articles by claiming that free
| speech didn't have costs and that dismissive and wrong, I
| think people did in fact make that claim.
| newbamboo wrote:
| Fair enough. I do see where you're coming from, just
| thought you made the case a bit too strongly. I feel like
| given the current environment in which censorship is
| running rampant, in the opinion of many on both the left
| and the right, that to assert nobody is questioning the
| value of free speech seems at least a tad unperceptive if
| not willfully ignorant. Perhaps I mischaracterise your
| thinking, and if so I hope no offense is taken. I've seen
| what I perceive to be a cultural shift between the late
| 80s and today in popular attitudes toward free speech, at
| least in progressive circles. My perception may be wrong,
| I fully acknowledge.
| thew2434234 wrote:
| Yes, China should instead be a soft banana-republic like India
| and surrender its whole historiography and narrative, and thereby
| its own self-understanding, to the West.
|
| Then, if someone speaks up for India or the Indian society, they
| can all be called "Hindutva" and then the West can ban them from
| the Indology conferences and the academics can all rejoice for
| having banned the Swastika-worshipping "original" Nazis.
|
| (sarcasm, yes, but everything noted above has happened in
| Indology. apparently, according to these worthies, Hindus are the
| original Nazis too - no I'm not kidding. explains the insidious
| anti-Hindu sentiment in the West.)
| guerrilla wrote:
| Nationalism isn't simply speaking up for onesself. In any case,
| what instances are you refering to? You assure us that this
| happened but didn't bother linking to anything. That's not an
| efficient way to convince people of something.
| Animats wrote:
| Well, that long, favorable article in the Neue Zurcher Zeitung
| ought to help. That's a well respected newspaper. Published since
| 1780.
| guerrilla wrote:
| You're underselling it a little. NZZ is the German-language
| Swiss newspaper of record, the NYT of Switzerland.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| You're overselling NYT I think. It's still one of the
| reputable sources of USA but I have some reservations.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I see no conflict between utter distrust for the NYT and
| the fact that it is indeed the paper of record for the US
| [1]. I was even going to say that it lends little
| credibility to the story itself, which should have to stand
| on its own merit, but it does speak to the impact of the
| story in Switzerland and possibly abroad.
|
| 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_of_record
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Fair enough. Thx for the color.
| [deleted]
| fmajid wrote:
| The Confucius Institutes should be closed and the mission of
| representing Chinese culture transferred to Singapore or Taiwan.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > the mission of representing Chinese culture transferred to
| Singapore or Taiwan
|
| This is certainly an interesting view.
|
| Who would do the transferring?
| bobthechef wrote:
| Somewhat tangential, but it's interesting that this is in St.
| Gallen. St. Gallen is known for the so-called St. Gallen Mafia
| which counted among its members the now defrocked sex predator
| Theodore McCarrick among others who negotiated deals for the
| Vatican under Francis in China and had a reputation for being
| pro-CCP in his leanings. Makes me wonder if there is some
| "Chinese representation" specifically in St. Gallen? Take this
| quote from the article:
|
| "For the last eight years, St. Gallen has also been home to a
| <<China Competence Center,>> the aim of which is to <<strengthen
| and deepen productive relations with China>>."
|
| (Frankly, this sort of content is being censored in the US by
| BigTech also, so...)
| [deleted]
| qwertox wrote:
| > His girlfriend was shocked when she saw some of the tweets.
| Talking with him on the telephone, she begged him to stop. Not
| because she necessarily disagreed with anything. But because she
| was worried about retaliation by the Chinese government. <<I'm in
| Switzerland, not China,>> Gerber replied. <<I can say what I want
| here.>>
|
| Shouldn't he have also taken into consideration that this
| "retaliation" could also be directed towards his girlfriend?
|
| Generally, the article raises the feeling of "mistakes have been
| made". There you have a professor afraid of harming her career,
| which is understandable, and having the option to play a "is de-
| registered anyway"-card. Keeping him in the unofficial
| advisorship and tied to the university can be seen as a friendly,
| helpful gesture on the part of the university, surely also with
| the intention to be able to refer to him should he build a
| successful career. It was a weak point which he should have taken
| into consideration, yet it would have been difficult to
| anticipate that it would turn out this way.
|
| Wasn't he planning to go back to Wuhan anyway? Why risk it?
| [deleted]
| stainforth wrote:
| The supervisor is a coward and should be known as one.
| pacman2 wrote:
| Is she? I love China and if somebody pulls a stunt like that
| that may blow up in my face I would take action too.
|
| Think about if you were in CS and a student of your would post
| some ISIS shit on the internet and you were threatened with a
| travel ban to the US. I think most people would think twice.
| ivalm wrote:
| Supporting free Hong Kong and Taiwan isn't really comparable
| to supporting ISIS. The "he is an anti Chinese racist"
| rhetoric seems stretched by the fact that he spent so much
| time there, his romantic partner is Chinese, he seems to have
| a friends network there.
| _tik_ wrote:
| Having a Chinese partner is not guaranteed for not racism.
| This reminds me of the local case. A British Expat married
| to a local and posting racist comments on social media. His
| defense was the local failed to understand the British
| joke.
| mvc wrote:
| Ah yes. The old, "I can't be racist. I have black friends"
| defense.
| ivalm wrote:
| Somehow im guessing it goes a bit deeper than "I have
| black friends" in this case. Althoug I haven't seen the
| image referred to in the tweet, so maybe it was in very
| very bad taste and racist.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Also following what I wrote nearby:
|
| curiously, you mention "ISIS", and a practice like "If you
| have ties with people we dislike there will be consequences
| for you" is one of the few correctly attributed instances for
| the concept of terrorism.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| People of other cultures, if told "Entity E will make so that
| if any student of yours expresses an opinion against E, you
| shall pay consequences", would make a perfectly consequently
| legitimate and correct declaration against E (defamating E in
| light of judgements evident and justifiable in some solid
| ethical frameworks: confusion in the attribution of
| responsibility, bullism, even the nowadays overused concept
| of terrorism, etc.).
| Beldin wrote:
| I am in CS. If a student of mine posted "ISIS shit", I'd want
| nothing to do with that person for personal reasons,
| irrespective of professional consequences.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _She had <<no desire to receive emails like this because of
| one of my doctoral students.>>_
| blobbers wrote:
| Chinese studies student critical of government "received" a
| fellowship from chinese government, met "girlfriend" in Wuhan.
|
| Girlfriend is a plant by Chinese government. Open your eyes.
|
| And on top of this, this comment is downvoted.
| jollybean wrote:
| It's a serious issue. One party speaks with on voice, everyone
| else thousands of voices, and not even a single world leader
| other than maybe the US President can get away with saying
| something.
|
| There needs to be more concerted effort.
| sleiben wrote:
| "The next day, he found he couldn't access his messages. An IT
| technician told him on the phone that his account didn't exist."
|
| Uff... reads like a paragraph from 1984 to me.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Uff, sounds like he played stupid games and won stupid prizes
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