I don't want to dismiss Chinese influence as a threat to Western values; but we have to keep this in perspective. China is thrice the population of the US and has a comparatively sized (arguably a bit larger, arguably a bit smaller) economy.
We expect their influence to catch up with their size and be comparable with the US government. The US government has long reach and a strong grip (eg, Assange, Snowden, the general pretence that their ongoing aggressive military posture is legitimate, synchronisation of global norms for intellectual property to American interests, Hollywood, etc).
How many other countries would threaten visa denial against the supervisor of a student with 10 Twitter followers? I happen to think the student’s tweets expressed extreme and unfounded views, but they hardly warrant such retaliation from one of the world’s most powerful countries.
One can only speculate how much worse the PRC's system is. The professor's fears are quite rational (I needn't say I wholeheartedly condemn her actions, and hope she's fired).
Thank you. I find this only slightly less disturbing than China’s behavior. Stopping a visitor at the border for social posts of acquaintances is almost as bad as writing nasty emails threatening to do so.
(Edit: Ismail was ultimately granted entry [1] but still shameful incident and disturbing that it could happen at all.)
> In a press release, Lopez says "this is a move so perverse, so grotesque as to defy explanation. Preventing people from entering the country because their friends critiqued the U.S. on social media shows an astounding disregard for the principle of free speech. The idea that Ajjawi should be prevented from taking his place at Harvard because of his own political speech would be alarming; that he should be denied this opportunity based on the speech of others is downright lawless."
I would replace the terms used by Lopez, from "astounding disregard for the principle of free speech" to "astounding disregard for the principle of justice". (Which, I rant, has been devastated in many places in the past 18 months.)
Theoretically, though, I understand from some publications that there is an ongoing debate in national security agencies about the thresholds to be observed between false positives and false negatives. Meaning: not that the authorities believed such judgement sensible or fair, but they probably delegated their sense of fairness to a top-down mandate of "better safe than sorry". Which, in the encouraged alienation from good sense, creates these monstrosities.
We expect their influence to catch up with their size and be comparable with the US government. The US government has long reach and a strong grip (eg, Assange, Snowden, the general pretence that their ongoing aggressive military posture is legitimate, synchronisation of global norms for intellectual property to American interests, Hollywood, etc).