The head of defense for Palantir Technologies says yes. Let’s discuss. 
Send the Students Home?
In a WSJ Op-Ed writer Mike Gallagher says Send Harvard’s Chinese Students Home
Roughly 30% of Harvard’s student body is foreign. At Columbia, that share approaches 40%. America’s finest universities benefit from billions in government grants and tax breaks while admitting fewer Americans every year. Our elite universities need a change of mindset. They should make a priority of educating exceptional Americans and citizens of our partner nations—not our adversaries.
Mr. Trump noted this summer that “the United States is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence,” which Joe Biden called “a defining technology of our era.” Universities help drive that race. Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, has argued that the rate of AI progress may be such that “you need to prevent all of our secrets from going over to our adversaries and you need to lock down the labs.”
Blindly embracing academic cooperation with a geopolitical rival is absurd. Nobody suggests we should train Iranian nuclear physicists or Russian ballistics engineers. The U.S. wouldn’t have been better off collaborating more with Nazi Germany in the 1930s or with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Why make an exception for a nation dedicated to surpassing the U.S. in emerging technologies?
Universities love Chinese students because they generally pay full freight, often subsidized by the Communist Party state. Universities need that money to feed their ever-expanding bureaucracies, and this dependency corrupts them.
The Trump administration doesn’t need to make deals with universities to rebalance the foreign-student population. Visas are the American president’s responsibility, not Harvard’s. The government gave universities leeway with immigration policies that mostly rubber-stamped admissions office decisions, but we can change that.
Refuse to issue student visas to Chinese Communist Party members and their children. Do the same for researchers affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army.
Critics will trot out the old canard that we need to admit more Chinese students to spread freedom via cultural exchange. It is a lovely idea but impossible to square with the reality of China today. The Chinese Communist Party’s chief ideologist, Wang Huning, was radicalized, not moderated, by his time at Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley. General Secretary Xi Jinping is a proud Harvard father.
When I was chairman of the House Select Committee on China, a group of university presidents asked me why so many of the party elite want to study at our colleges. I half-joked that, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Chinese want to send their youth to the last bastions of true communist ideology. The joke got more laughs than expected because it hit close to home. It is up to the Trump administration to ensure that Beijing doesn’t have the last laugh.
About Mike Gallagher
Mr. Gallagher is head of defense for Palantir Technologies and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute.
He represented Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District (2017-24) and was chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
You Cannot Stop the Spread of Knowledge
Mr. Gallagher foolishly believes the US can stop the spread of knowledge.
He lives in a right-wing conspiracy vacuum that wants to try.
If there are genuine security concerns over specific individuals, by all means, address those. But Gallagher wants a blanket solution.
This was the subject of discussion last week with some friends, one of whom graduated from Harvard. My friend commented …
I think that this is ignorant nativism.
These nativist fools think that we are somehow giving Chinese students information to which they would otherwise not have access. Harvard does plenty of work for defense, but you need security clearance. Whether you are from D.C. or Beijing, you can’t get access to secret stuff without clearance. You accomplish nothing by sending home a bunch of people with no access to secret materials.
Nor is there any technical training that the Chinese can’t get elsewhere. Harvard does not have secret academic texts to which no other university has access.
Here’s what I got out of attending Harvard: I got to debate legal issues every day with the smartest people my age I had ever met. Hundreds of thousands of such interactions over three years trained my mind to anticipate counter-arguments. They taught me to think out of the box – because if you stay in the box at Harvard, you are doomed to below average status. Those kids taught me that brilliant minds can come to different conclusions about the nature of society and thus all well-defended views must be respected. I learned what was different and what was similar among people from very different places. And I made lifetime friends I met in courtrooms, conferences, restaurants and outside activities.
There were not many Chinese students when I was in school. But there were many people from other corners of the globe who helped my education by bringing their different perspectives. So, all you are really doing by keeping them out is impairing the education of American students and destroying the possibility of long-term friendships that will someday prevent a terrible war for our descendants.
My son-in-law teaches what you might call technical information. He is on the cutting edge of “blue sky” technical research. He has done work on the fearsome robots that will soon be involved in infantry and submarine combat. His specialty is marine robots. He does not share classified work with people without clearance. But he strongly supports the presence of Chinese and other international students on campus for the very reasons that I outlined in law.
Chinese and American scientists participate in international conferences on advances in knowledge in all non-classified aspects of their work. And that’s over 90% of what they do.
US scientists cannot cut themselves from the international exchange of ideas. In fact, they have even less ability to do so than we lawyers, who function in artificially segregated legal systems.
The people who are urging Chinese expulsion are almost entirely people who have no idea how science works in the modern era.
I replied …
I view this similar to the US attempting to cut Huawei off from chip technology. The US forced Huawei to make its own chips and then was surprised when China exceeded years before expected.
The Chinese chips are not as good, but for phone technology they are plenty good enough. The result was lost exports and a doubling down by China to catch up.
It’s futile to believe one can stop the spread of knowledge.
My friend replied back …
I agree, Mish But it’s even sillier. China doesn’t have to develop its own information.
All China has to do is keep attending the international conferences where people share their findings.
People who are not in science think that everything is conducted in a dark room.
Moreover, the narrow application of scientific knowledge to devices is carefully guarded. And it’s not just because of national security. THERE IS COMMERCIAL BENEFIT IN SUCH APPLICATIONS.
You don’t want anyone to be able to beat you to the patent or trade secret that is going to make a lot of money for you and your institution. And that, of course, includes Chinese students.
A Fool’s Mission
Mr. Gallagher either believes Chinese students have access to top secret research or the US has some sort of monopoly on education that cannot be found elsewhere.
Neither is true.
In his right-wing conspiratorial rant, Gallagher stated “Mr. Trump deserves credit for addressing the corrupt and immoral links between universities like Harvard and the Chinese Communist Party.”
What a hoot. As head of Palantir Technologies, Gallagher ought to know that science is not conducted in a dark room. And what is conducted in a dark room, Chinese students don’t have access to.
But Gallagher is blinded by right-wing conspiratorial nonsense and ignorant nativism. Unfortunately, Trump is surrounded by such individuals.
Throwing Away a Trade Surplus
Finally, the US has a huge trade surplus in services. Education is a key reason why.
Gallagher and his ilk want to kill that surplus in belief they can stop the spread of knowledge.
But the US has no monopoly in education so it’s a costly fool’s mission to do what Gallagher opines.
Will AI Take Every Job?
In case you missed it, please consider Elon Musk Backs Universal High Income Fearing AI Will Take Every Job
It’s a logical fallacy. Before clicking, see if you can figure out why.
I’m sure that banning Chinese students will have zero impact on the AI race. China have proved themselves perfectly capable of inventing things and they are naturally smarter, higher IQs, and more hardworking than Americans.
I doubt that the Chinese will care too much if the US bans their students they can always study at Oxbridge….but remember that the US poaches the best and brightest Chinese students to work in the US, and they will lose the Chinese who are, at present, bailing out the dumbed down, incurious Americans.
https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/laura-loomer-breaks-with-trump-in-rare-public-split-over-china-student-visas/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark
Cheeto Pedo just ok’d 600k Chinese students.
Time for the simps to sing another chorus of praises to Dear Leader.
China was the partner of US till around 2017 when Trump changed the tune to adversary.
Indian students can be the target in a few years time when India getting rich and more advanced.
Followed by Indonesia, Malaysia etc.
Is Harvard University really priceless or prestigious?
Here are some of the college dropped out entrepreneur and billionaires – –
Bill Gates – Dropped out of Harvard, co-founded Microsoft.
Mark Zuckerberg – Left Harvard to build Facebook.
Steve Jobs – Dropped out of Reed College, co-founded Apple.
Michael Dell – Left University of Texas, founded Dell Computers.
Larry Ellison – Dropped out of both University of Illinois and University of Chicago, co-founded Oracle.
Limit them to gender studies majors.
“Harvard does plenty of work for defense, but you need security clearance. Whether you are from D.C. or Beijing, you can’t get access to secret stuff without clearance.”
Not legally, but in general, every so often someone who has secret clearance is charged with passing secrets on to adversaries, in exchange for money.
Should China bar American students from top Chinese universities?
Providing the Americans can pass the tough Chinese admission requirements.
Chinese make engineers.
Americans make lawyers.
R1 universities in the U.S. quietly started to not admit students from China in March. So, this process has already begun.
If you drop the Chinese students and Football from all US universities we’d be better off. Our entire education system is up side down. Too bad humans are so hooked on short term cash generation.
Speak for yourself.
I love to watch college football. And that particular sports program for D1 schools pays for itself.
Don’t like it?; don’t pay to watch it. It’s called a market for a reason.
So why do the majority of colleges where football DOES NOT pay its way continue to have it?
Same reason cars have A/C or charging connectors for your cellphones. Because the majority of customers want them.
No one forces a college student to enroll in a university that has a football team. But you should talk to college students that go to these schools; most of them want these experiences a four-year college offers.
If you think that’s stupid of them, that’s your opinion. But they don’t care about your opinion.
3 Aircraft carriers. Hypersonic missiles. Flooding markets with cheap goods to destroy competition. Genocide of Uighurs, Genocide of Tibetans, on and on and on. Still claiming they are an emerging market and whining about it. Put them on the rocket ship.
You are drinking too much Kool aid. Turn the TV and radio news off and get off social media.
11 aircraft carriers, two of whom were chased out of the Red Sea by the Houthis. No hypersonic missiles. No manufacturing economy outside of defense. Genocide of Native Americans. Genocide of Gazans. Still claiming they are a Christian country and whining about it. Needs Elon Musk to build rocket ships.
the article implies they are essentially spies or thieves .
you decide.
If I remember correctly, Mish used to give information to Sitka Pacific investors three months prior to everyone here. At some level you have to believe that delaying information and keeping knowledge is a good idea.
Take DEI out of all post secondary education and the Chinese student issue goes away. The CCP will not allow their students to be subjected to free thinkers. Not good for the party or state.
Seriously, you think the US education system develops “free thinkers’? I’m shocked.
My wife and I were having a glass of wine at a cafe in Portugal. A Chinese woman came over and introduced herself. The woman had all sorts of degrees and was upset she couldn’t find a good job in the US (she was a fitness instructor), although educated here. She didn’t like the US but stayed because of her husband, an American. She was no fan of the US but seemed to prefer China for job opportunities. It was a curious encounter.
High edu kept state’s unemployment low. Penn State will close 7 campuses. Prof Kotlikoff will cut Cornell payroll by 15%. CMU cut 20 Computer Science members. Harvard layoffs cont. Stanford cut $150M. Columbia U cut 180 staff. U of Chicago, MIT cut, cut cut…due to their problems with Trump.
ChatGPT will cut jobs in SAP. Trump will claim victory on H1B. LA, Chicago and DC
crime rate is down. Trump will sent national guards and claim victory. Israel dismantled Iran nukes. Trump sent B2 and claimed victory.
Burning the libraries of Alexandrea was not a great idea either.
Before Trump gutted the SEC they were investigating Plantar for financial fraud?
Hmmmmmmm…
Trump and his team of sycophants seem to want an Orwellian state ~ via AI.
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The globalists transferred production and knowledge to China and India. They built R&D centers in the US, China India and Israel. China and India are superstates. Israel is a proxy state, which depends on US. The US gov employees and private co employees – engineers, scientists and managements – have protected computers carried with them 24h when they travel or WFH. Their knowledge and secrets stay with them. It’s their co IP, or gov secrets. ChatGPT transfers general knowledge, but not secret technical knowledge. U cannot sue China for stealing knowledge.
You Cannot Stop the Spread of Knowledge
—
You could by cutting off the internet and firing an EMP. That would put most of the world back in the stone ages with no chance for a quick recovery because electronics are used in everything.
You can’t convince me not to throw out every Chinese master’s or PhD student. I worked at a company where two were busted for transmitting sensitive data (intellectual property on patents not yet filed) back to China. The company ended up prosecuting them and they were deported after it proven they were sending information back to the Chinese government. The CEO of the company was a US citizen born in Lebanon who ended up hiring a “5 eyes” company to monitor what every person at the company was doing. There are many Chinese nationals working at US tech companies that shouldn’t be and are actual spies. The same is true of some Indians. The first requirement for being employed if you get a degree should be a US citizenship. Otherwise deport everyone else. I’m an immigrant who didn’t come to the US on a work visa or for grad school. I was happy when the US consulate put holes through my Indian passport when I became a US citizen at the age of 16.
The backlash against work visas is just starting. There is a rally in Washington DC in November for all US citizens who want to participate. There are too many qualified unemployed US citizens who have been replaced by visa holders. These people never had a chance because the system was setup by corporations and lawyers to only advertise jobs for US citizens in newspapers. After many decades, there are people in charge now that are uncovering the extent of the scam that has been perpetrated by both parties for decades.
If this isn’t fixed, someone a lot worse than Trump may rise to power.
Trump rose to power to stop the globalists scam !
When I was in grad school there were plenty of Chinese students. 25 years ago most of them wanted freedom and good paying jobs. They got financial aid here and never wanted to go back. But more recently they are getting paid by China to go to school here so there’s more obligation to go back. Obviously China is getting technology information from somewhere. A lot of it is in industry and the result of hacking. You can see it in military weapons like planes. I believe their STS was a lot like ours too. But now they are surpassing us all on their own now. How do you stop espionage? Idk that’s not my specialty. I’m sure everybody’s doing it including us. But China simply has a numbers advantage. They graduate engineers something like 8-1. Ai might be our only hope to keep up technologically. We’ll also have to source our own materials and manufacturing or at least partner with allies.
Concerning non-technical areas foreign students can study US students, and curriculums, education systems, history and all sorts of information to learn how to target/exploit Americans whether it’s espionage or social media/engineering all to influence what we do. Just FYI.
Limit and Vet the foreign applicants that we may be at war with in the future.
Diversity prevents class failures however. Maybe the US may learn from them when they are here.
Paperclip and Overcast brought over lots of Nazis. They helped build some of the most sophisticated undergeound bunkers that may still be used to protect the president in nuclear war. We also brought over some 731 scientists from Japan.
Lesson from history. Secret keeping works at it allows you to develop better tech than what is stolen as stolen tech takes time to develop into weapons.
The U.S. “Atoms for Peace” program, launched in 1953, provided nuclear technology, materials, and training to countries around the world for civilian use, with the stated goal of promoting peaceful applications of atomic energy. However, this program also inadvertently helped some countries develop their own nuclear weapons capabilities.
While it’s difficult to give a precise number, several countries that participated in or benefited from the program went on to develop or pursue nuclear weapons. These include:
* India: A major beneficiary of the “Atoms for Peace” program, India used its civilian nuclear program to develop its first nuclear weapon, which it tested in 1974.
* Israel: Built its first nuclear reactor under the program and is now widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it maintains a policy of ambiguity.
* Pakistan: Also built a research reactor under the program, and later developed nuclear weapons.
* Iran: The program laid the foundation for Iran’s nuclear program in 1957, providing key technology and education.
* South Africa: Utilized its civilian nuclear program to build a small arsenal of nuclear weapons, which it later dismantled.
* Argentina and Brazil: Both countries received assistance and attempted to develop nuclear weapons capabilities, though they ultimately abandoned these programs.
* Taiwan and South Korea: Also had early ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.
The “Atoms for Peace” program, while intended to promote peaceful uses, had the unintended consequence of disseminating nuclear knowledge and technology, which some nations were able to leverage for their own weapons programs.
In the 50’s France built Dimona nuke in Israel. France, Israel and S. Africa herd together until their divorce a decade later. Russia and the US are two superpowers. Each has more nukes than the rest of the world combine. France, India, Pakistan and Israel are mini nukes. Iran is an injured animal. Ukraine war didn’t escalate to WWIII, bc Ukraine gave up on its nukes. China is a rising threat. There are no American students in Xinjiang. Pakistan has a 400 miles disputed land border with Xinjiang. India is down south.
Good post, Mish, you really brought out a lot of the hubris mongers with this one.
So often on this site, I read from commenters how the US education system (especially higher education) is practically worthless and just full of tuition-sucking administrators indoctrinating everyone to switch genders and to learn to write poetry bad enough to become a lifelong barista.
Now, with Mike Gallagher’s expert opinion, these same commenters are now convinced young Chinese students are strategically taking genuine American ingenuity out of these same education bastions, stealing what’s uniquely American and valuable for their own benefit and our future detriment.
It’s comical to see the flip-flop. So thanks again for the post.
When these Chinese minds are here doing their research, the products of that research belong to the University, not the student.
Read the contracts…
We get far more than we give in this equation!
China should ban them if we don’t.
My simple response – when China believe they can defeat the US military, they will initiate conflict.
Does having Chinese students at US universities accelerate that?
not a fan of China, but what evidence is there for China will initiate conflict? what history does China have of doing this, exactly? it has been a major power for a century or more, and in the past for millenia, but tell me what far-away colonies has it set up and what sovereign countries has it invaded? the only one i can think of is the small border conflicts with Vietnam that flare up every 20 years, and never amount to wars.
meanwhle the US has battleships and aircraft carriers in every ocean, including many in China’s backyard. China is not the good guy, but for ost of its history its evil has largely been imposed domestically.
Many Americans make up claims against China and Chinese people without any credible evidence because their slanted eyes make them an easy target for bigots.
How are their universities?
My engineering classmates were mostly Asian, many of them Chinese. Years later, one of my white classmates repeated the meme that China steals IP.
Who does he think performs research at U.S. universities and corporations? Does he think Chinese people in China are unable to research too? Why not?
I
China files almost twice as many patents as the US every year. That trope is old as just shows how ignorant your colleagues are. Unfortunately, they are the norm in the US.
My colleague also simultaneously:
– believed Covid was a plandemic
– continues calling it “Wu-flu”
If Covid was a planned event and all economic damage was essentially self-inflicted, then the point of origin is immaterial and, in turn, there’s no reason to use a term that blames China for it.
I’m unsure of the source of his hostility. He calls himself and libertarian and is staunchly “anti-communist”. Does that explain it? But, he somehow also misses how China is a hybrid, like most everywhere else, except the wealth is slightly less concentrated in the very top (for now). How can that possibly explain his nonsense? I dislike saying “it’s racism” (because it seemed overused). But, i have no other explanations remaining.
I’m having this conversation here with you and myself and not with my former colleagues because I’m tired of bullshit…
Actually, my colleague sounds like Wisdom Seeker.
Another funny thing…25 years ago my IT colleague loved the idea of outsourcing USA jobs. “Let them make potato chips so we can make more computer chips.”
I haven’t stuck his nose in it…
The mask was slipping before. In 2025, it’s fallen off.
If Chinese people didn’t understand what “pivot to Asia” meant when the regime announced it over a decade ago, maybe this ban puts them on notice.
The D.C. regime also used “Wuflu” to generate anti-China sentiment, enough to cause physical assaults against Chinese people. That, too, should’ve been causing Chinese people to worry about continuing to live or study in Oceania.
Ironically, the few white people I know who called it “wuflu” also thought the western mRNA jabs were poison and that all the economic damage stemmed from unnecessary methods like lockdowns. These people haven’t resolved the contradictions.
Are we importing talent, or exporting valuable know-how for nearly nothing?
The Chinese, like the Japanese in the 1980s, came here, learned what we did, and learned how to clone most of it and make it better than much of what was here.
This is how and why the Japanese automakers are dominant.
The friend that Mish cites is clearly not a scientist. Sounds like a lawyer who works in a tech biz but doesn’t actually do research. Scientific research isn’t built on academic “everyone can study it” knowledge (logos). It’s built on hands-on skillsets (techne): well organized labs, equipment and instrumentation that a handful of people have spent lifetimes putting together and figuring out how to use for discovery.
You don’t learn how to do that in a conference, you don’t learn it in a textbook, you can only learn it by working side by side in a laboratory with them, or the hard way by trying and failing yourself, which takes 10x longer.
This accumulated expertise cannot be copied, it has to be learned the hard way. It is why U.S. graduate STEM programs have long been among the best in the world.
That hands-on expertise is a key target of Chinese intellectual property theft, which also extended to manufacturing know-how, where they only allowed joint ventures if they got ownership of the know-how. Hands-on expertise is being harvested by the Chinese, intentionally, by sending students here and paying them to bring it all back home. First they just sent students over, so we got used to having students around. Now they have a huge network that only affects a subset of those students, but enough that they get what they need at our expense.
It may not be time to stop foreign students but it’s certainly time to evaluate the costs and benefits of feeding the DNA of technological supremacy to a communist dictatorship, when we thought we were simply attracting brains to power our own economy.
Sure, because it’s that full-tuition-paying 18-year-old Chinese college student that has caused the US economic ‘malaise’?
LIke Japan or China could not already buy any American automobile, tear it apart, and figure out how to make it better? Or use a spectrometer to reverse engineer any US pharmaceutical they want? Or examine or work in any solar cell manufacturing plant? Etc. And then make these products cheaper and better than we do.
The idea that a general US higher education degree (that the students or their government pay mightily for) is the primary cause of us losing our manufacturing edge is farcical
It’s much easier to reverse engineer something when you know exactly what processes and equipment were used. It takes much more effort to reverse engineer something when you don’t know anything specific about how it was made.
Similarly, it’s much easier to replicate and extend an empirical scientific result when you have access to and expertise in operating identical equipment and procedures, because you’ve been in the lab and know what they did.
If it were easier to just figure it out by “tearing stuff apart”, the Chinese, Japanese, and whoever before them would’ve just done that. Instead for some reason they all sent people over here to observe and learn. They did that because it sped things up and lowered their costs.
For Japan it made sense to enable that because they’ve been a strategic ally. For China, it makes no sense at all because they’re a communist dictatorship standing in opposition to all of the fundamental Western values except “get rich through unfair trade practices”.
> where they only allowed joint ventures if they got ownership of the know-how
NATO oligarchs made that decision on their own free will, so they could pay less to nato serfs and keep skimming the fat margins for themselves. Them and them alone. Now these oligarchs want people to hate China. It’s not for national security or democracy, unless you think living under the uniparty tyranny of warmaking pedo oligarchs is your idea of capitalism, democracy, and freedom. It’s not to “bring jobs back”, because nato oligarchs wouldn’t have outsourced the jobs in the first place if they cared about the serfs. It’s to prevent Chinese oligarchs from developing their own retail brands and cutting out nato oligarchs. The nato oligarchs want the ultimate “asset-light” balance sheet: Offshore everything but their profit stream.
…
By the way, did you ever call it “Wuflu” while simultaneously believing the lockdowns were unnecessary and the western mRNA (unlike the traditional vaccines used in China) were dangerous?
I’m not excusing the corporations for kowtowing to China on giving away their intellectual property. In most tragic situations there’s plenty of blame to go around on all sides. Everyone was complicit.
Our *oligarchs* were complicit. *Most* regular Americans, including me, did not want a rapid deindustrialization. Maybe you’re a younger fella. But most Americans knew dropping tariffs on imports from China would create a Giant Sucking Sound of jobs leaving the country. How did we know? Because we heard the same sound 10 years earlier when our oligarchs dropped tariffs on Mexican goods.
At this point, I don’t favor the return of taxes on imports. To the extent manufacturing (of weapons) returns, it won’t return jobs. Our oligarchs plan to automate.
All our oligarchs are doing now is fighting competition (first tariffs, eventually kinetically) from foreigners. It was fine with them when they sent my or your community’s incomes offshore or imported millions to reverse laborers’ gains but not fine with them when they’re affected personally.
I like your rhetoric at the end
People hate foreigners so much they don’t even think clearly on this issue. We run our country on its services surplus. Guess what education tuition benefits? Yes, THAT. Xenophobes are willing to trash our economy to express their hatred of brown folk. Pathetic.
I don’t worry about Chinese students; we should rather get worried about the „best and brightest“ leaving or avoiding the US. With an administration that is anti-science from top to bottom, this can happen much faster than we think because exceptional human capital tends to be extremely mobile.
A country run by lawyers, biz admins, and financiers. …. It’s not just this admin. But I agree they seem worse.
you misspelled worst
🙂
Probably right. But too late for me to edit.
Just raise the bar significantly. Still take in the top 0.1 worldwide. Close the door for the rich Chinese buying their way in. The top notch foreign kids will most likely stay and benefit our companies.
Lowering the bar for mediocre white kids. It’ll work great.
Yeah, the universities already have had a category for that on their applications for years, it’s called “checks none of the boxes”, but can include an essay My Three Moms.
Is this Mike Gallagher the same China hating scumbag who quit the house? Is there anything the Irish will not do for a dollar?
Ban the men, but let the women in – unless they’re fat.
Surprised that the Old Gates don’t enroll at the party colleges and die with the debt and a smile instead of some senior living funeral parlor. Who needs the hags at The Villages?
Not everything in life is about profits and trade. A policy of no chinese students in US universities does not necessarily mean we are preventing them from gaining knowledge, only slowing them down, and that’s enough of an advantage to win wars. Europe is starting to see how much of an economic and military threat China has become, so it will only be a matter of time before Europe adopts US policy.
China has made “cultural partnerships” with US universities and local governments. So while their students get some US education, they are also part of a disinformation psy-ops: befriend American youth and lull them into a sense of complacency. Win without firing a single shot.
What “war” do you want your genocidal pedogarchs to win?
For every one of our students that wants to study in China, the US will take one Chinese. That’s fair.
It’s idiotic and I explained why
Send them to Mongolia.
“Send [them] to Detroit!”
– Kentucky Fried Movie
At the turn of the last century, Japan sent the brightest to Europe and US, and as a result caught up with the West fast.
Similar thing happened with China, starting with the opening by Deng Xiaoping.
If they didn’t think, they could catch up or perhaps leapfrog the West, they would be coming.
Perhaps the argument is old, and should have happened long ago, but not seeing the pattern is willful blindness.
On the flip side, if the Chinese economists didn’t study at Harvard and Co., they would know what ZIRP and monetary stimulus is: the ultimate US weapon to crush the Chinese economy.
Prior to Japan, the U.S. sent its brightest to Europe (1900-1939) and harvested European knowledge. It wasn’t a national policy it’s just that if you wanted to get ahead here you had to have the best training, which was over there. But it had the same effect of raising the U.S. tech level faster than the European level, aided by Europe slaughtering itself twice over.
If you stop admitting foreign students, the universities will go bankrupt. All part of the ongoing demographic death spiral. As usual, people are worried about the wrong thing and don’t comprehend what’s happening but the bigots will bigot right down to the last blowing tumbleweed.
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/08/nx-s1-5246200/demographic-cliff-fewer-college-students-mean-fewer-graduates
Less workers = less social security and medicare tax revenue. And the death spiral grows from there.
“If you stop admitting foreign students, the universities will go bankrupt.”
Personally, I’m fine with that, but I think Mish’s post is specifically targeting Chinese students which won’t cause Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. to go bankrupt. In many cases, these schools are just indoctrination camps. You do realize that eventually they’re going bankrupt anyway, right?
When AI soon starts to take destroy jobs, fewer people will go to college. You’re even predicting this in your post. At a certain point, say 25 years from now, college will have no real value.
America has been for years sending far too many students to college than is really needed.
And BTW, we both agree strongly on your last point. Add to that the national debt.
The ones Mish is talking about and that the defense author is talking about are not under grads getting day to day jobs. No one cares about those.
It’s the 1% of the 1% of the 1% that are doing cutting edge research in PHD programs that they are talking about. There are probably only a few dozen (maybe a few hundred tops) that really matter.
“Roughly 30% of Harvard’s student body is foreign. At Columbia, that share approaches 40%.”
Taken directly from the article. This statement IS NOT qualified as under or grad degrees.
And honestly, I could care less. GET THEM ALL OUTTA HERE.
The author’s first statement nails it:
It makes no sense for the U.S. to be educating the scientific and leadership class of a future adversary.
The vast majority of university expenses are non-educational. They need to get back to being lean.
Harvard spends more on administrators of student culture (or whatever) than professors. The bloat at other major universities is just as obvious and very well documented for anyone willing to look beyond the mind-silo of NPR.
You – like anyone else – are entitled to your opinion.
But Harvard is a private institution. So why should you get a vote on what they do? And how they do it? People all over the US and the world are clamoring to be admitted to that institution. I’m sure it’s not perfect, but those that matter (the students) must like it or they would go elsewhere.
Are you a professional university administrator? Or professor? Or highly paid university consultant? Someone with expertise that can enlighten the rest of us? If not, maybe you should stay in your lane.
It started when the drive-ins went away.
This was already tried this in 1942-45, when we interred all citizens of Japanese ancestry just in case they were spies.
His examples are telling. We actually did cooperate with the Nazis, importing all kinds of people who were excuses for war crime trials. They helped start NASA, worked as nuclear engineers, and helped write US Army manuals.
As for sharing with the Russian and Chinese ballistic engineers. Who was hauling the astronauts from the space station? Who is generations ahead with hypersonic missiles?
This is all severe myopia.
IMO we need to get rid of the CPC admin people who the Chinese insist be given high level positions at our universities, in return for all their students paying full tuition. It’s madness that that little known agreement was ever allowed to play out; and that it’s still going on!
I’m with Mish and his friend. It’s a total waste of time to stop allowing Chinese students at our top schools.
1) Knowledge is a 2 way street. We are learning from their stop students coming here in the same way they are learning from us in return. We want to remain on the forefront of the best breakthroughs and only by having the best will be we able to do that. Once you are 2nd or 3rd best it’s very hard to go back.
2) Some Chinese might be radicalized by coming here but the majority won’t be. Many will choose to remain here in the US rather than go home to China so we will in effect be stealing some of their brightest.
3) As Mish’s friend noted, knowledge does not remain a secret any more. Once discovered it gets out fast (at the height of the cold war Russia stole nuclear bomb tech from the US very quickly and that’s arguably the most important military secret of the 20th century).
Russia actually got the info on the bomb as it was being created by a commie sympathizer working at Los Alamos; so that was long before the “Cold War” ever began.
Wow. I wish we would have known this 50 years ago, when China started to steal our IP.
What exactly has America “learned” from China’s top students? Are you sure about that statement?
As for point number 2, that’s an extremely big assumption with no real basis in reality.
As for point #3, so should we just invite Chinese scientist into Darpa & Area 51, hoping they reciprocate? Are you sure this is a two-way street? I’m not.
Defense secrets are entirely different from university education. Of course we shouldn’t give those away and that’s why you need security clearances.
As for IP, virtually anything that can be purchased as a consumer item can be reverse engineered given a bit of time once they have one of those objects. That’s why there is a patent office. Without it, any invention made would be quickly copied by everyone else instantly.
As far as point 2 goes, I know several Chinese nationals who have emigrated to the USA as top computer science people and I doubt I’m the only one who knows such people in computer science. I imagine all kinds of other professions also have Chinese immigrants in them.
At least they’ll have to spend time & money reverse engineering it.
“I know several Chinese nationals who have emigrated to the USA as top computer science people.”
I could care less who you know.
SEND THEM BACK TO CHINA WHERE THEY BELONG. ZERO TOLERENCE.
When China invades Taiwan, there’s no telling what damage some of these Chinese nationals will do to the USA from the inside. You have no idea if these people you know are not members of the CCP laying in wait.
Your last sentence,
“They were given it by …”
Hell no… somebody’s gotta keep the grading curve from dropping off the chart.
Too Late
Anyone who works in education can see where this is going, it takes an absolute brainlet to miss it. Locking America down into a fascist state = everyone leaving. Germany had to learn this lesson hard and perhaps America does too: Professors can afford plane tickets. For everyone saying American students need to be favored: do you think world class teachers will stick around to teach America first education when Europe is offering them jobs and citizenship?
The only thing that’s kept this country running is being ahead thanks to our massive academic engine. Your fancy planes? Thank MIT and Harvard grads. Cool missiles and the computer chips in them? Ivy made all the way back to the 50s. Want to know what happens when your population is dumber than dogshit because your intellectuals left? Just look over to Russia and North Korea and you’ll have your answer. Both are countries that manufacture nothing of value, design nothing of value, and ARE nothing of value. Anyone who can afford to leave does so.
We are a services based economy that is rapidly getting rid of services to replace with nothing else.
right, this kind of nationalist protectionism effectuated through overly aggressive federal government (aren’t Republicans supposed to be against that??) maybe makes sense on paper, but fails in real life.
the message being sent loud and clear is: the US doesn’t want foreigners here and so the ones that have choices won’t come.
you will also start to see American citizens with choices leaving.
I’m putting my options together because at this point it’s pretty obvious that Trump intends on having himself a civil war. It couldn’t be much clearer with the open threats towards states and military call ups. Only issue is that I don’t know if anyone will have time to leave at the rate we are going.
I think we should export dual citizens of Israel and outlaw AIPAC and the ADL as this cast of characters has done more to wreck America than any other group.
AIPAC spends about $80 million per year. Qatar spends billions per year lobbying Congress and funding Middle East programs at US colleges that teach hatred of America.
They all gotta go…
The UK too. Any Rhodes Scholarship people have to go with that British Imperialism influence too.
Deport Israelis, ADL and AIPAC Caste people. Replace them with Islamists who infiltrated Harvard, Columbia and MIT. JK, please come back!
CMU educate our children for a better future. CMU is China town. CMU educate
children in Qatar.
CMU?
Carnegie Mellon U, Pgh PA and Stanford.
CMU is an important limb of the DOD.
Prof Puttas in China. Chinese student in CMU near top secret labs. ChatGPT knows nothing about top secret DOD data. Many co cannot hire students without US citizenship.
Just checking. I live here, and yes, they are cutting edge and very diverse. There’s a whole section of the city that has so much talent it’s incredible.
To your note about “China Town”. Went down the incline last week. Had a Chinese family whose dad worked at SAP (looking at the building across the river) with his young son (maybe 7 yrs old) and their grandparents. The kid spoke PERFECT english with not a hint of an accent (definitely not ‘yinz), father made sure he didn’t speak mandarin even in front of family, and they are looking to build a life here. That is awesome.
SAP is a German software co. Chinese students deprive American students from CMU especially from CMU computer science dept. A 19Y/22Y grad starting salary: $100K/$150K. Many US co cannot accept students without US citizenship.
You can look at my other comments, but I totally agree with you. There are people (like my son) who wants to go to these schools (CMU Robotics), but CMU makes more money with foreigners.
IE, the US can still have the achievement with people here, but the universities see profit = wrong.
My comment was pointing to at least in this case? This family wants to be Americans, and frankly, that is not very common.
Universities are for profit. Foreigners bring more profit, and would take a less-than-average foreign student over a US student purely for money – then add the H1B problem (that should be completely eliminated BTW)…
This IS wrong. Free market here works so long as it benefits the US – sorry, but not sorry.
As an Ohio State Engineering grad, don’t get me started with athletics…
I am curious how many years ago Mish’s friend graduated from Harvard? I suspect 30 or more years back but could certainly be wrong.
Meh, Harvard, like the other Ivies, you get your job through wealthy connections, definitely not solely through academics…
Pretty certain 1976-1978 range
– The head of defense for Palantir Technologies says yes. Let’s discuss. > Absolutely not, if based solely on Race!! Now should every foreigner entering certain companies, and Federal Position etc. YES imo! College not sure of the actual rules there?
– Roughly 30% of Harvard’s student body is foreign. At Columbia, that share approaches 40%. > Seems to me that we have a much larger problem in diversity (not that kind). If there are 10 foreign slots, then open them up to 10 Foreign Countries. If there are 10,000 open slots, then we have far too many slots. 1-3 per country (150-500 give or take) seems fair.
– America’s finest universities benefit from billions in government grants and tax breaks. > Why? They have Billions in endowments, that they then use for other things perhaps, as a result.
– Visas are the American president’s responsibility, not Harvard’s. > Good Point!
Perhaps those graduates should be required to remain for 4 years to teach or work in the industry? Some kind of path to citizenship as well. Especially considering that our birth rate is below replacement so it is a function of who do we allow to immigrate.