Academia Should Stop Sharing Science With the CCP
Udumbara
The goal of universal education is laudable, and the idea is beautiful that any child anywhere in the world could be the next Einstein and ought to have the opportunity. But we ought to consider that some education, like nuclear weapons technology, ought not to be given out freely to anyone who comes knocking at the door of democracy.
Democracies have the most vibrant academic institutions because knowledge thrives in the context of freedom. This is why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sends at least some of its best and brightest to the United States and our allied countries. It wants to gather the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) knowledge produced in democracies and ultimately use it against democracy.
“We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”
The policy is consistent with the intention of voters for President Donald Trump, who want more opportunities for U.S. citizens. It aligns with strategic considerations of strengthening U.S. students in STEM subjects, which are key to developing the next generation of STEM professionals.
There are three main arguments against the policy, including that it is somehow racist against Chinese, though this is a canard. The policy is against strengthening America’s adversary, the CCP, rather than being against Chinese-Americans.
Most Chinese-Americans—who moved to the United States and stay here because they love our country, its opportunities, and its principles of freedom, markets, democracy, and human rights—will support a policy that seeks to protect U.S. STEM advantages from the CCP. Those STEM advantages, if fully absorbed by the CCP and China more generally, over which the CCP has control, could be used to defeat the United States and our principles globally.
Why should democratic countries provide STEM education to autocratic countries that will allow the latter to defeat us and our principles in the future?
Many times throughout history, great powers were defeated by rivals who first gathered all of the knowledge necessary to do so from the great powers themselves. This happened to the British Empire as its colonies educated themselves in England and then used that education to break away.
Japan, in the Meiji period, purposefully extracted and copied European educational, political, and technological standards, with which it developed a military capable of victory in Korea, Taiwan, China, and against Russia at the turn of the 20th century. That military was used on the side of the Allies in World War I, but eventually turned against the United States starting on Dec. 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor.
The CCP is uniquely positioned, with control over China’s entire economy and a rapidly expanding military, to lead a coalition of dictatorships, including Russia, against the United States and our allies.
There is a third argument that the large number of Chinese national students in the United States strengthens our academies with their high tuition and academic contributions. Without China’s money, we could not hire as many STEM professors. But their tuition could be replaced with more government financial support for STEM disciplines in universities focused on U.S. strategic objectives. And CCP-linked student academic contributions are questionable, as it is possible that the CCP instructs its graduate-level students, and above, to check major discoveries with the CCP before publishing or otherwise sharing them.
The United States and the United Kingdom would never have published their nuclear weapons secrets as they were developed during World War II. That would have been suicidal, given the Nazi goal to develop the same weapon. The CCP likely does not want to lose the next major military technological discovery if it perchance discovers it first. The United States should also consider making major STEM discoveries with potential military applications in U.S. universities that are export-controlled until approved by capable U.S. authorities.
This is not the 1950s anymore. We are older and wiser as a nation because we no longer believe that dictatorships will democratize if given the fruits of democracy. The world is more dangerous, and we must be more careful with whom we share our highest STEM discoveries. At the same time, we want to attract true talent from China with a demonstrated commitment to American values. That will strengthen our country as talented immigrants typically do.
