Comment by discoduck1
4 years ago
The bio of the assistant professor, Kangjie Lu, is here: https://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~kjlu/
It probably IS from being out of touch, or perhaps desperation to become tenured. However, he is also an alumnus of Chongqing University: http://www.cse.cqu.edu.cn/info/2095/5360.htm
Please don't do this here.
How about that question gets asked when there's actually some semblance of evidence that supports that theory. When you just throw, what I call, "dual loyalty" out as an immediate possibility just because the person is from China it starts to sound real nasty from the observers point of view.
Although there's nothing to suggest that this professor is in any way supported by the Chinese state, I don't think it's completely unreasonable to wonder.
The UK government has already said that China is targeting the UK via academics and students. China is a very aggressive threat with a ton of resources. It's certainly a real scenario to consider.
Just as this "research" has burnt the trust between the kernel maintainers and the UMN, if China intentionally installs spies into western academia, at some point you have to call into question the background of any Chinese student. It's not fair, but currently China is relying on the fact that we care about fairness and due process.
I acknowledged it's a possibility and there is precedence for it, at least in industry, in the US.
That said, prove what they did was wrong, prove whether controls like the IRB were used properly and informed correctly, prove or disqualify the veracity of their public statements (like the ones they made to the IEEE), then start looking at possible motivations other than the ones stated. I get that's difficult because these folks have already proven to be integrity violators but I think it's worthwhile to try to stick to.
If you jump straight to dual loyalty it is unfortunately also a position that will be easily co-opted by other bad faith actors and needlessly muddies the conversation because not all good faith and reasonable possibilities have been explored yet. I'm promoting the idea of a well-defined process here so that nobody can claim that it's just bigoted people making these accusations.
It's a very real threat and possibility thus an absolutely appropriate question to be asking. There are numerous documented instances of espionage performed by Chinese nationals while operating within the US educational system.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/american-universities-are...
So asking 'why?' in this situation is in some way unethical because the person in question is from China? Or is it that we have to limit the answers to our question because the person is from China? Please advise, and further clarify what thoughts are not permitted based on the nationality of the person in question.