RUTHFULLY YOURS

A Reuters report today suggests that for now the White House is focused on playing defense:

The Trump administration is considering new background checks and other restrictions on Chinese students in the United States over growing espionage concerns, U.S. officials and congressional sources said.

In June, the U.S. State Department shortened the length of visas for Chinese graduate students studying aviation, robotics and advanced manufacturing to one year from five. U.S. officials said the goal was to curb the risk of spying and theft of intellectual property in areas vital to national security…

Every Chinese student who China sends here has to go through a party and government approval process,” one senior U.S. official told Reuters. “You may not be here for espionage purposes as traditionally defined, but no Chinese student who’s coming here is untethered from the state.”

Having practiced its surveillance techniques on associates of the Republican party in the U.S., perhaps America’s intelligence community can now gather important information about espionage directed by the Communist party in China.

But the U.S. can play offense, too, by untethering Chinese tech talent from the state. For Chinese students who don’t appear to pose any threat, the U.S. should seek to recruit more of them to study in the U.S. and ultimately to create new intellectual property here. Whether native or foreign-born, innovators are treated less well in China than they used to be.

The Chinese regime’s official publication People’s Daily says that billionaire Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma is a member of the Communist party. Li Yuan reports in the New York Times that for businesspeople in China calling themselves communists is “often a matter of expediency. Party membership provides a layer of protection in a country where private ownership protections are often haphazardly enforced or ignored entirely.”

Ms. Li adds:

The star power of the Chinese entrepreneur class has dimmed since Xi Jinping became the country’s top leader in 2012. Under Mr. Xi, the Communist Party plays a bigger role in not only Chinese politics but also the economy and everyday life. Any entity with more than three party members is required to set up a party cell…

The disclosure of Mr. Ma’s membership reflects the thinking that the party controls the economy and society, said Guo Yuhua, a sociology professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing and a critic of the party… The disclosure also drew attention because Mr. Ma had in the past tried to keep his distance from the government. When asked at public appearances how he managed government relations, he often said, “Fall in love with the government, but don’t get married.”

But as Mr. Xi tightens ideological controls and the power of the state grows, many successful entrepreneurs have made a point of showing their party loyalty. CONTINUE AT SITE