This is good policy. Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills. An American with the same communication skills would never be admitted to a flagship university for undergrad, let alone grad school.
I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.
>This is good policy. Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills. An American with the same communication skills would never be admitted to a flagship university for undergrad, let alone grad school.
Surely there are better ways of dealing with this than banning an entire country? A standardized English test doesn't seem too hard to administer, for instance, and would have the benefit of being applicable to other countries.
>I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.
So you're not even sure what the problem is, but you're okay with banning it? That dumber than banning them because they might be CCP spies or whatever. At least that vaguely makes sense and there are isn't really a mitigation (there's no standardized tests for non-CCP spies, for instance).
> So you're not even sure what the problem is, but you're okay with banning it?
They are claiming that those students are under-qualified either way. They only don’t know if they are “gaming the system” or it’s just a regular failure of the system.
> A standardized English test doesn't seem too hard to administer
I’ve seen a lot of claims of rampant cheating in China. Perhaps gp who doesn’t seem to have a high opinion of Chinese students would worry about cheating in a standardized test?
What about this policy has anything to do with English language skills? And how is this “good policy” if it penalizes important next-generation researchers even when they speak English well? I am not denying your observation re: English language skills among Chinese graduate students—it’s just unclear what this solves that checking for English language skills during the live video interview stage does not.
Because its basically a reinterpretation of the Family Guy "Skin color palette" meme. Instead, its "how do you speak american English?"
Admittedly, Ive also been subject to this, especially when I deal with tech support. I do have a pretty negative response when I hear an Indian-English accent. I'm reasonably sure I will be apologized at 4+ times, ignored what I say, restate what they say, "do the needful", and likewise.
The article says nothing about English language skills. It says:
'University officials have described the unwritten policy as a prudent response to the current uncertainty facing Chinese and other foreign students when they apply for visas to study in the United States. “They are telling us that these foreign students may not show up if we offer them a position,” the faculty member says. “And that could jeopardize our research.”'
My wife teachers in universities in London, and the issue of Chinese students turning up with little or no English is real, often having paid for someone else to take the required English language tests for them. She has had students write their essays in Chinese and then just copied and pasted from Google Translate, generating utterly unintelligible dross. But that is definitively not the explanation here - this is all Chinese students, proficient in English or not.
As an American who is a current grad student at Purdue this sucks. I've met great grad students from all around and it's sad that these exact sorts of really smart people have had increasing difficulty in coming to the US and staying here.
It’s great place for grad school. Very little to do other than study and lab work. Play soccer with the grad students, float on the river in the summer, shoot potato gun cannons in corn fields, but otherwise there’s nothing better to do than work on a PhD.
I’d recommend it for grad school. But then yea time to move on.
Cornell grad here, comp-sci department. The big problem with foreign grad students who cannot speak english is they then have a tendency to jump into their native language during office hours.
At Cornell, we'd have office hours discussions evolve partially or wholly into chinese or russian -- and all the english students were scratching their heads. This should never happen.
office hours are not a private discussion -- they are group discussions with 1 TA and 5-6 students all trying to use a very precious timeslot to figure something out. All convos should be in English.
This is sad but not unexpected. It’s a huge boon for China, since that talent is much more likely to stay in China now. Everyone thought Trump was a Russian mole, but increasingly it is the Chinese who are benefiting from his policies.
It would be akin to admitting German grad students in Physics in 1935. At some point Americans will need to realize that realpolitik dictates you don’t educate your enemy at scale as a policy matter, lest we discover the hard way how this will go wrong.
In 1935, Albert Einstein relocated to Princeton permanently, so it's certainly an odd choice of a year in this context.
Random graduate students won't work on classified projects. The vast majority of non-classified studies will not have any impact on national security for years to come. It's unclear what the actual risks are, beyond the general distrust of foreigners.
This may come as a surprise to you but Albert Einstein was Jewish.
An interesting extension of this hypothetical scenario comparison would be one where America further restricted educational opporunities for Chinese students but made exceptions for Chinese students with Tibetan or Uyghur ethnicities.
> It is quite possible to be both. I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
> Noch eine Art Anwendung des Relativitätsprinzips zum Ergötzen des Lesers: Heute werde ich in Deutschland als "deutscher Gelehrter", in England als "Schweizer Jude" bezeichnet; sollte ich aber einst in die Lage kommen, als "bète noire" präsentiert zu werden, dann wäre ich umgekehrt für die Deutschen ein „Schweizer Jude", für die Engländer ein "deutscher Gelehrter".
China as the enemy is a fabricated narrative, bc culturally we seem to have a need to have another cold war, we need a "bad guy"
in reality theyre just economic rivals. But then again so are the EU.
in terms of zone of political influence the competition isnt anything crazy (except for the poor taiwanese caught in the middle) and there is no clash of political ideaologies
In my experience Chinese in China don't typically see the US as an enemy. Its a weird framing for them
>"The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said. "That is the first time China has made that statement publicly."
FWIW, Xu Qiliang said that war with the United States is inevitable because of the "Thucydides Trap", the theory that an incumbent power is not going to accept the rise of a competing power. In that case, the war would be started by the current ruling power, not by the rising power. I.e., by the US.
In 2014, Xi Jinping had already said "China fully understands that we need a peaceful and stable internal and external environment to develop ourselves. We all need to work together to avoid the Thucydides trap - destructive tensions between an emerging power and established powers … Our aim is to foster a new model of major country relations."
China kind of avoided the Thicydides trap already it looks like. Trump’s national security strategy document has indicated that the US is going to shore up around the Americas instead of doing the global hegemony strategy. And there have been statements made by US military people (Hegseth maybe) indicating that the US can’t militarily take on China near their coast anymore.
>> "The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said.
Do we have something better than some English-language hearsay from five years ago? I tried looking for more on this and found nothing.
I did discover that Xu Qiliang died last June. I doubt he's going to have much influence going forward.
Okay they have a small limited amount of border disputes that wrapped up in their nationalism. But they're not instigating coupe-detats is other countries to get favorable regimes, or significantly militarily meddling in other regions of the world to get favorable outcomes.
I'd say on the whole, given their size, military strength and economic connections, they've been remarkably restrained - borderline isolationist - when it comes to international interference. I don't see how they're a danger to democracy outside of their own borders - with the exception of maybe troll farms that are trying to shape cultural narratives
It doesn't matter what your experience with ordinary Chinese are. China is not a democracy, they are a fascist dictatorship. Only the senior party officials' opinion matters and they clearly behave as though they see the US as an adversary.
The flip-side of enrolling your enemies is that they form lifelong friendships with both the local students and the country as a whole. It makes it a lot harder to hate a country once you get to know them.
Umm. The best physics work in the world was being done by European academics and admitting them then and earlier was perhaps the best thing that happened both for American science & tech as well as the ability to wage war.
Fortunately for us the Germans were stupid. They chose to murder all of the relatives of those immigrants for ideological reasons instead of using their safety and life as leverage to influence the behavior of the emigres in important scientific positions. The Chinese are known to do exactly this and I don't expect too many students or professors to put their adoptive country over family.
This is good policy. Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills. An American with the same communication skills would never be admitted to a flagship university for undergrad, let alone grad school.
I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.
>This is good policy. Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills. An American with the same communication skills would never be admitted to a flagship university for undergrad, let alone grad school.
Surely there are better ways of dealing with this than banning an entire country? A standardized English test doesn't seem too hard to administer, for instance, and would have the benefit of being applicable to other countries.
>I'm not sure how these Chinese students are gaming the system to get admitted, but I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it.
So you're not even sure what the problem is, but you're okay with banning it? That dumber than banning them because they might be CCP spies or whatever. At least that vaguely makes sense and there are isn't really a mitigation (there's no standardized tests for non-CCP spies, for instance).
> So you're not even sure what the problem is, but you're okay with banning it?
They are claiming that those students are under-qualified either way. They only don’t know if they are “gaming the system” or it’s just a regular failure of the system.
> A standardized English test doesn't seem too hard to administer
I’ve seen a lot of claims of rampant cheating in China. Perhaps gp who doesn’t seem to have a high opinion of Chinese students would worry about cheating in a standardized test?
What about this policy has anything to do with English language skills? And how is this “good policy” if it penalizes important next-generation researchers even when they speak English well? I am not denying your observation re: English language skills among Chinese graduate students—it’s just unclear what this solves that checking for English language skills during the live video interview stage does not.
Because its basically a reinterpretation of the Family Guy "Skin color palette" meme. Instead, its "how do you speak american English?"
Admittedly, Ive also been subject to this, especially when I deal with tech support. I do have a pretty negative response when I hear an Indian-English accent. I'm reasonably sure I will be apologized at 4+ times, ignored what I say, restate what they say, "do the needful", and likewise.
The article says nothing about English language skills. It says:
'University officials have described the unwritten policy as a prudent response to the current uncertainty facing Chinese and other foreign students when they apply for visas to study in the United States. “They are telling us that these foreign students may not show up if we offer them a position,” the faculty member says. “And that could jeopardize our research.”'
My wife teachers in universities in London, and the issue of Chinese students turning up with little or no English is real, often having paid for someone else to take the required English language tests for them. She has had students write their essays in Chinese and then just copied and pasted from Google Translate, generating utterly unintelligible dross. But that is definitively not the explanation here - this is all Chinese students, proficient in English or not.
>Chinese students in particular seem to have terrible english language skills.
English, not english.
> gaming the system to get admitted
Probably money. Foreign students will almost always pay sticker price.
In that case why would Purdue need to ban them specifically? Just remove pressures/incentives they were putting in place to admit foreign students.
> Foreign students will almost always pay sticker price.
On the contrary, they pay the international student price, which is much higher.
As an American who is a current grad student at Purdue this sucks. I've met great grad students from all around and it's sad that these exact sorts of really smart people have had increasing difficulty in coming to the US and staying here.
Purdue doing the Chinese a favor. Nobody wants to go to West Lafayette.
It’s great place for grad school. Very little to do other than study and lab work. Play soccer with the grad students, float on the river in the summer, shoot potato gun cannons in corn fields, but otherwise there’s nothing better to do than work on a PhD.
I’d recommend it for grad school. But then yea time to move on.
Cornell grad here, comp-sci department. The big problem with foreign grad students who cannot speak english is they then have a tendency to jump into their native language during office hours.
At Cornell, we'd have office hours discussions evolve partially or wholly into chinese or russian -- and all the english students were scratching their heads. This should never happen.
office hours are not a private discussion -- they are group discussions with 1 TA and 5-6 students all trying to use a very precious timeslot to figure something out. All convos should be in English.
Then you should have a policy that says "English only during office hours", not one that says "no foreign grad students admitted".
These students had already received an acceptance letter, so possibly they already turned down other positions based on that letter.
This is sad but not unexpected. It’s a huge boon for China, since that talent is much more likely to stay in China now. Everyone thought Trump was a Russian mole, but increasingly it is the Chinese who are benefiting from his policies.
It would be akin to admitting German grad students in Physics in 1935. At some point Americans will need to realize that realpolitik dictates you don’t educate your enemy at scale as a policy matter, lest we discover the hard way how this will go wrong.
In 1935, Albert Einstein relocated to Princeton permanently, so it's certainly an odd choice of a year in this context.
Random graduate students won't work on classified projects. The vast majority of non-classified studies will not have any impact on national security for years to come. It's unclear what the actual risks are, beyond the general distrust of foreigners.
This may come as a surprise to you but Albert Einstein was Jewish.
An interesting extension of this hypothetical scenario comparison would be one where America further restricted educational opporunities for Chinese students but made exceptions for Chinese students with Tibetan or Uyghur ethnicities.
Albert Einstein was also German.
> It is quite possible to be both. I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
> Noch eine Art Anwendung des Relativitätsprinzips zum Ergötzen des Lesers: Heute werde ich in Deutschland als "deutscher Gelehrter", in England als "Schweizer Jude" bezeichnet; sollte ich aber einst in die Lage kommen, als "bète noire" präsentiert zu werden, dann wäre ich umgekehrt für die Deutschen ein „Schweizer Jude", für die Engländer ein "deutscher Gelehrter".
Realpolitik dictates that you don't start conflicts with all of your allies for literally no reason
The empire has vassals, not allies.
The empire is doing everything it can to alienate its vassals into indipendent cities-states with their own alliances
Vassals who refuse to bend the knee tend to ... not live long. Often replaced by those who bend it properly.
You nailed it
Good point but not popular here.
China as the enemy is a fabricated narrative, bc culturally we seem to have a need to have another cold war, we need a "bad guy"
in reality theyre just economic rivals. But then again so are the EU.
in terms of zone of political influence the competition isnt anything crazy (except for the poor taiwanese caught in the middle) and there is no clash of political ideaologies
In my experience Chinese in China don't typically see the US as an enemy. Its a weird framing for them
China doesn't seem to think so.
>"The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said. "That is the first time China has made that statement publicly."
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/03/11/china-declare...
Would you say the same thing about Russia, Is that a fabricated narrative? Why or why not?
FWIW, Xu Qiliang said that war with the United States is inevitable because of the "Thucydides Trap", the theory that an incumbent power is not going to accept the rise of a competing power. In that case, the war would be started by the current ruling power, not by the rising power. I.e., by the US.
In 2014, Xi Jinping had already said "China fully understands that we need a peaceful and stable internal and external environment to develop ourselves. We all need to work together to avoid the Thucydides trap - destructive tensions between an emerging power and established powers … Our aim is to foster a new model of major country relations."
China kind of avoided the Thicydides trap already it looks like. Trump’s national security strategy document has indicated that the US is going to shore up around the Americas instead of doing the global hegemony strategy. And there have been statements made by US military people (Hegseth maybe) indicating that the US can’t militarily take on China near their coast anymore.
>> "The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China's Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable," Coffman said.
Do we have something better than some English-language hearsay from five years ago? I tried looking for more on this and found nothing.
I did discover that Xu Qiliang died last June. I doubt he's going to have much influence going forward.
Try speaking to someone from Hong Kong or Tibet and get back to me.
Claiming that China isn’t a danger to democracy and doesn’t have expansionist desires is insane. Look no further than their border with India.
Okay they have a small limited amount of border disputes that wrapped up in their nationalism. But they're not instigating coupe-detats is other countries to get favorable regimes, or significantly militarily meddling in other regions of the world to get favorable outcomes.
I'd say on the whole, given their size, military strength and economic connections, they've been remarkably restrained - borderline isolationist - when it comes to international interference. I don't see how they're a danger to democracy outside of their own borders - with the exception of maybe troll farms that are trying to shape cultural narratives
> Look no further than their border with India.
What, the one where they stage battles in which gunpowder weapons are prohibited?
When's the last time it moved?
It doesn't matter what your experience with ordinary Chinese are. China is not a democracy, they are a fascist dictatorship. Only the senior party officials' opinion matters and they clearly behave as though they see the US as an adversary.
Best to drop all international students then, because it seems that America considers all other nations as its enemy.
The flip-side of enrolling your enemies is that they form lifelong friendships with both the local students and the country as a whole. It makes it a lot harder to hate a country once you get to know them.
Xi Jinping spent significant time in America. This hasn’t done a whole lot for us or the human rights of his people.
Umm. The best physics work in the world was being done by European academics and admitting them then and earlier was perhaps the best thing that happened both for American science & tech as well as the ability to wage war.
What? In fact, we did make it difficult for "German grad students in Physics" to immigrate here [1].
Fortunately for us -- very fortunately -- we found a way to accommodate them and keep them on our side.
1: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/09/22/how-ivy-leagu...
Fortunately for us the Germans were stupid. They chose to murder all of the relatives of those immigrants for ideological reasons instead of using their safety and life as leverage to influence the behavior of the emigres in important scientific positions. The Chinese are known to do exactly this and I don't expect too many students or professors to put their adoptive country over family.
The metaphor might make more sense with US in the role that was invading on pretexts to try to recover the self image of a strange looking leader.