Read on Twitter
1/ bit uncomfortable with this wording tbh but I'm going to try explain why in terms of the history of intel activity at US universities, bc I don't think it's a mistaken sentiment per se. so, THREAD: the KMT, PRC, Saudi Arabia, and the history of spying on college kids in the US https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/1290756472951971845
for the record, if I had to make my 100% correct and irreversible judgment, I'd say poorly worded china take on James' part, but I also dont think it is an inherently bigoted statement at all. take that as you will. anyways, buckle up lovelies.
3/ these are copies of declassified documents from the 60s showing how the KMT would suppress Taiwanese Independence activists in the US, and in particular in the second doc, an intelligence report, the explicit use of students as key nodes in & targets of informant networks.
4/ the general consensus is that more or less any and every US campus with Taiwanese students had at least one KMT agent, who'd tattle on them to the consulate if their peers did something politically bad. Ma Ying-jeou was allegedly one "professional student" (職業學生) lol
5/ The US government was aware of this fact, at least as the years went on, esp. after a number of cases of Tw students getting imprisoned back home brought it to the political forefront. Also, the KMT overplayed its hand in the 80s and straight up murdered some people. Oops.
6/ The Senate opened an investigation in the late 70s, writing a still-classified report. But WaPo got a hold of it, god bless them, and let us know: the Senate was PISSED. Why the hell wasn't the FBI protecting people on US soil?! Mainly because, it seems...
7/ …the FBI didn't care that much (Soviets were more important to them), and didn't want to jeopardize existing intelligence relationships that the CIA had with ROC (& ROK and pre-rev Iran, which also heavily spied on/terrorized their nationals studying abroad in the States).
(Here's the WaPo report. I emailed them as an undergrad asking for a copy of the report but they never got back to me, if any WaPorter wants to hook me up....) https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/08/09/foreign-spy-activity-found-rampant-in-us/b56ac4bd-e9ff-496f-8abc-f950fcd039b8/?utm_term=.6c4c96be7871
8/ This pissed off the Dept. of State, which appeared to want the FBI to do more. It also appears that intercepted diplomatic cables were the main source of this information, *not* any counterintelligence investigations. how else could you know, even *if* the FBI were on it?
9/ but what could it do? wiretap all students? The FBI didnt have the time, resources, nor authority to fully tackle the issue. Nor would they today, when most, if not all, of this communication is prob going through--you guessed it--WeChat. We know from reporting (and my own…
10/ …personal anecdotes and encounters with PRC students in college) that there *are* PRC students who liaise with consulates and embassies and report on the political status of their peers, although nowhere does the evidence suggest they do so nearly as extensively as TW, etc.
11/ See, for instance, reporting by @BethanyAllenEbr , although my understanding is it's unclear if this student was informed on or somehow discovered otherwise. Nonetheless, shows that students can be sanctioned for speech conducted in the US https://www.axios.com/china-arrests-university-minnesota-twitter-e495cf47-d895-4014-9ac8-8dc76aa6004d.html
11/ The Saudis also do this to their citizens, & we don't do anything to stop them, because as a nation we have evidently decided it's fine to torment your own students for having Politically Incorrect thoughts, & murder Yemeni children, for some fcking reason. Ahem. I digress.
shit. i did two 11/s. dammit
12/ and now for the best part of the thread, where I actually make my damn point: In the status quo, it is highly questionable that the counterintelligence capacities of the US could be deployed effectively to combat int'l student surveillance and repression.
13/ The most feasible model would be to only involve the FBI after a university filed a complaint; I would be very in support of an office *specifically* for handling possible complaints of surveillance. If needed, FBI could step in, and citizenship paths might even open.
14/ But frankly I do not trust US intelligence agencies at present to be given a mandate to "stop Chinese spies on colleges" and then not go apeshit. What'll happen is we'll get an extremely dangerous weasel hunt, possibly by president cat-food brain AGAIN until 2024.
(it also feeds into an anti-China narrative, and the FBI is about as delicate and subtle as a coked-out EDM festivalgoer https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3094378/chinese-students-risk-harassment-us-law-enforcement-agencies)
15/ Liberal-minded Chinese students have suffered for being too outspoken while in the United States, despite the protections they are granted under the 1st Amendment. That is unacceptable. There are potential solutions.
16/ It will be a lot harder than just ferreting out the weasels (haha pun) and is not something that can just be fiat-ed into existence. I do not think in the present political climate there is a way to make a few examples of people without US intel going overboard.
17/ I hope I am wrong, but otherwise, this will require a lot more effort from civil society (read: universities, who already handle things like Title IX super well...).
18/18 all of which is to say, I am again doing the wishy-washy "both sides" thing, bite me. In the context of, well, 2020, I think calling for a weasel hunt will get us nowhere. but no, Monsieur Palmer is not just being paranoid, & I sympathize with his anger at the phenomenon.
I will also add that while i do respect James, I also do want to be clear that I think this kind of rhetoric is demonstrably harmful/incendiary at present for chinese students--the overwhelming majority, of course, who are just Doing Their Thing--which is why I am very conflicted
this was supposed to be part of this thread i h8 tw*tter https://twitter.com/badchinatake/status/1290891613665984517?s=21 https://twitter.com/badchinatake/status/1290891613665984517
