1,100 Scientists and Students Barred From UK Amid China Crackdown (theguardian.com) 36
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: More than 1,000 scientists and postgraduate students were barred from working in the UK last year on national security grounds, amid a major government crackdown on research collaborations with China. Figures obtained by the Guardian reveal that a record 1,104 scientists and postgraduate students were rejected by Foreign Office vetting in 2022, up from 128 in 2020 and just 13 in 2016.
The sharp increase follows a hardening of the government's stance on scientific ties with China, with warnings from MI5 of a growing espionage threat, major research centers being quietly shut down and accusations by a government minister that China's leading genomics company had regularly sought to hack into the NHS's genetic database. Geopolitical tensions stepped up further this week, as the US, Australia and the UK announced a multi-decade, multibillion-dollar deal aimed at countering China's military expansion in the Indo-Pacific. China said the Aukus plan to build a combined fleet of elite nuclear-powered submarines was "a path of error and danger."
The Foreign Office declined to give a breakdown by nationality, but data supplied by leading universities including Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College suggests that, at these institutions at least, Chinese academics account for a majority of those denied clearance. Some have welcomed the policy shift, with one security expert saying the number of academics being barred is "commensurate with the threat." But leading scientists say the scheme is leaving universities struggling to recruit the best talent from abroad. "A majority of applicants are thought to be scientists seeking to move to the UK to take up offers of research degrees or fellowships," adds the Guardian. "But the Guardian is also aware of researchers, including five Chinese scientists at Imperial college, who did not pass clearance despite having already held positions at UK universities for several years -- and who may have had to leave the UK as a result."
The sharp increase follows a hardening of the government's stance on scientific ties with China, with warnings from MI5 of a growing espionage threat, major research centers being quietly shut down and accusations by a government minister that China's leading genomics company had regularly sought to hack into the NHS's genetic database. Geopolitical tensions stepped up further this week, as the US, Australia and the UK announced a multi-decade, multibillion-dollar deal aimed at countering China's military expansion in the Indo-Pacific. China said the Aukus plan to build a combined fleet of elite nuclear-powered submarines was "a path of error and danger."
The Foreign Office declined to give a breakdown by nationality, but data supplied by leading universities including Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College suggests that, at these institutions at least, Chinese academics account for a majority of those denied clearance. Some have welcomed the policy shift, with one security expert saying the number of academics being barred is "commensurate with the threat." But leading scientists say the scheme is leaving universities struggling to recruit the best talent from abroad. "A majority of applicants are thought to be scientists seeking to move to the UK to take up offers of research degrees or fellowships," adds the Guardian. "But the Guardian is also aware of researchers, including five Chinese scientists at Imperial college, who did not pass clearance despite having already held positions at UK universities for several years -- and who may have had to leave the UK as a result."
Be mindful of the costs of a stricter stance (Score:2, Insightful)
Filters aren't perfect, so they'll bound to reject legitimate scientists and students who are innocent of this, especially in an environment with increasing foreigner fearmongering. They should weigh the loss of talent and their contributions against the threat and possibility of intellectual property being stolen, and that's not clear cut. We do have to remind ourselves that 1 of the greatest strengths of western free society is being open to talent from everywhere, who then contributes and benefit our soc
They will all come to Canada (Score:5, Interesting)
Here it comes (Score:1)
the "blame Canada" meme.
Re: (Score:2)
Blame Canada? I was thinking the obligatory Trump says "China" video [youtube.com].
Re:They will all come to Canada (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
I already seen a few articles that they're bypassing US and UK restrictions by coming to Canada and taking majors that won't raise alarms but still allow them to study the technology the CCP is interested in. My guess is that once they're in Canada, it will give them a chance to transfer to a US college more easily too.
Well they already killed Canada's biggest tech company through a combination of hacking and espionage [nationalpost.com].
Re: (Score:1)
Unlikely. China is quickly finding their welcome in Canada is fading, and it's about fucking time.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Don't forget about the Russians. How they are still waking free in the west is stunning to be honest. Makes me think this war is already over.
Kafkaesque (Score:2, Insightful)
Aren't we using "National Security" as a weird stand in that substitutes economic interests for military ones. Cos its feeling like none of this has much to do with Chinas shitty human rights or concerns for Taiwan, but rather "China is doing really well economically and only America is allowed to do really well".
Which if you think about it its using government intervention to defeat competition.
Meanwhile a bunch of pointy headed science types are getting denied a chance to work on science because some dud
The problem is distinguishing the threat (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because we dont currently *like* China, doesnt mean we should treat people *from* China like threats. Its 2023, that kind of arcane thinking is what got us into the worst of the hot water that the 1900s threw at us.
Real threats from Chinese industrial and military espionage have been shown to have already occurred. The problem is not all Chinese students and workers are spies. It's very likely that most are not spies. However, the damage from spies is not only real but widespread, even if only a small portion of the Chinese students and workers are spies.
How should the US, the UK, and other Western countries proceed? The extremes are to either ban all Chinese students and workers or to treat all Chinese students and workers the same as those from other countries. The former is discriminatory, while the latter is surrender in the face of a known aggressive Chinese spy program. So, the only alternative is to look at each student and worker individually. But the challenge is in detecting those students and workers that have not yet spied but might in the future. So, the conundrum of discrimination versus surrender is simply conducted on an individual basis.
Re: (Score:2)
Very real [nytimes.com], people need to remember this is economic warfare. Combine with their behavior in other countries like Africa [uscc.gov], they aren't any nations friend.
Re: (Score:2)
The West should respond with renewed investment in R&D.
At most, all this will do is slightly slow China down. They have good universities, lots of highly skilled graduates, and plenty of money to put into research. We have already seen China leap ahead of us in various new technologies, such as automotive batteries.
The UK actually really needs those Chinese students. The fees they pay subsidise the educations of British students. Cutting them off actually hurts us, while doing very little to protect wha
Re: (Score:3)
"Spying" is pretty irrelevant in this field today. China has long since acquired the people that can do it themselves, typically by sending lots of students to study abroad. Blocking that, say, 30 years ago, may have had an effect, but now it is far too late.
Re:Kafkaesque (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't we using "National Security" as a weird stand-in that substitutes economic interests for military ones.
No. The West was happy to engage with China economically, in the expectation that economic reform in China would be accompanied, or at least followed, by political liberalization.
It is now clear that is NOT going to happen. China isn't liberalizing. They are sliding backward into a "Big Man" Maoist dictatorship. Xi has abolished term limits. The CCP crushed democracy in HK. They fired missiles into Taiwan's territorial waters. They are bullying the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea. They killed 20 Indians in a border incursion they initiated. They are ramping up their defense spending and building many more nukes.
These are actions initiated by China, not the West. The West is only responding.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
So, we had an "expectation" to change their political orientation, but they are the initiators.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Better reading comprehension than average, but typically unwarranted sarcasm. 3/10.
We didn't care about political liberalization (Score:2)
We could liberalize China tomorrow by demanding equivalent pay and working conditions as American workers (ok, maybe "American workers from the 70s", given how bad things have gotten here since Reagan) and demanding reviews done by American government employees rather than businesses (funny how Apple says
Re: (Score:1)
You have to look at it relatively with historical context. Compared to the modern western democracies, it's not liberalized enough, but compared to the Mao communist era, it's heads and shoulders above the totalitarian society of that time. Too many people are ignorant about history and too self-absorbed in their bubble to look at the big picture and understand how China progressed to where it is today.
A lot of their progress was reform at the economic level instead of political, and it lifted a billion peo
Re: (Score:2)
"The idea being that those roll out things regularly cause car crashes (which at the time was disproportionately killing a lot of aboriginal teenagers)"
It would nice if Aboriginal teenagers DIDN'T steal cars in first place perhaps ?
Re: (Score:3)
Don't confuse an Is with an Ought.
Its all very well that its not a good situation (It IS a situation however that has historical causes by chronic economic underdevelopment leading to generations of people without hope pissed off at society and thus unwilling to follow its rules. After all why follow the rules of the game if the dice are loaded.).
Whatever the case , being a delinquent teenager shouldnt carry a death penalty. And
Re: (Score:2)
"China is doing really well economically and only America is allowed to do really well"
Except this is about the UK, not the US.
The US used to have a similar program to check for Chinese spying in university and commercial settings, but Pres. Biden cancelled it because it was "racist". The US doesn't seem to much care anymore about Chinese spying and industrial espionage.
Re: (Score:2)
The UK is a vassal to the US in many regards, and has been for a long time. Not a smart strategy, but a time-honored one.
Re: Kafkaesque (Score:1)
Aren't we...
Definitely not.
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't we using "National Security" as a weird stand in that substitutes economic interests for military ones. Cos its feeling like none of this has much to do with Chinas shitty human rights or concerns for Taiwan, but rather "China is doing really well economically and only America is allowed to do really well".
Indeed. Essentially, this is protectionism, which makes claiming "national security" an illegal act. But government assholes never get punished for those, so they do it all the time. As to the US doing well, that is long past. China was playing catch-up for a few decades but not anymore:
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
Looks very much like all these protectionist measures are going to do is make the US lagging even more behind. Arrogance is not substitute for capability.
Good! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Protectionism and isolationism are the road to hell. I, for one, do applout any US efforts to make itself irrelevant, so I do hope the US does this too as well.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Should be all the members of the CCP, Chinese military and their immediate family.
"Natioal Security", the dumbest lie ever.... (Score:1)
What really gets me is that so many people still believe this crap. The only reason this lie is used is because it is very hard to do anything about it going the legal route. Essentially it is the administration removing right from people using an "argument" that should be emergency-only. But since nobody in a government function will ever get punished for blatant lies and abuse of any powers, this gets used more and more.