Asian Invasion

A couple of years ago, the Washington Post did a front-page story on the University I worked for. I was interviewed for my successful recruiting of top Chinese students into its academic community. I was thrilled that these wonderful students were then profiled and pictured as being an integral part of our university. I know our founder would have been proud.  It was the first time a story that was not negative had graced the front page of the Post on anything to do with students. I felt happy and very self-satisfied. I knew I had done something good.

Then I read the article on line. There were more pictures of our students smiling, cooking, and making goofy faces. I had talked to the photographer and he wanted to portray these super geniuses not as nerds looking through books or at a computer screen. Those were outdated clichés. Instead, after taking with them, he decided to go to one of their dinners. The photos were an accurate portrayal of the playful, well-rounded students they were and still are. Once again, I thought "how great": the cultural stereotypes that so often exist among Americans toward Asians in general had been given proof positive that they were not accurate. Now I felt a great thing had been done and wanted to thank the Post for profiling these kids.

But then I read the reader comments. I was shocked. Then angry, and then sad. Not quite the seven stages of grief because frankly I still have not gotten over what I read then and what I hear when people talk at parties or write in books some of what was said on-line. A great many of the comments focused on why a great university would give away spaces to potential spies and communists. Really. Moreover, this was the Washington Post for goodness sake, the liberal media elite. Yet, comment after comment ripped into our policy and students. They accused them of being stooges for their government. They accused them of being communist spies here to steal our secrets. In fact, these students know a great deal about what happens in China. They are not blithely ignorant.

When people hear that people in China do not have access to Facebook and some other sites what they do not realize is that this is, as so much in China when it comes to government intervention, only partly true. Anyone who studies in the US gets an IP address that permits access to Facebook and Google and anything else. Western hotels, which offer free wireless in the lobbies, can be open access too. The Chinese government knows this and frankly, they don’t care. It’s not the smart people they are worried about. It is the poor and uneducated who are kept in the dark and this is, for their government, for very good reasons.

While readers on the Post were accusing these students of being spies, they probably did not pay much attention to the significance, this summer, of the Chinese Party’s removal of Bo Xilei. The charismatic leader of cites and a province was gaining a great following among the poor and calling for a return to Maoist ideals. He was charged with crimes, as was his wife; his son was taken to task in both the US and Chinese press for living lavishly. In other words, he was purged. Well, lots of reasons, but the one Chinese students talk to me about is that he was moving in a direction the party does not want to follow. His call for a return of what we in the west would call Maoist values is exactly what the leaders do not want. For their economic success to continue they need the poor to be poor and quiescent. The need cheap labor and they don’t need unrest from 800,000,000 people. In short, he was purged for being too communist. Now that is textbook defining irony given what some people in the US think the Chinese government is planning here in the US.

I mention this simply to correct yet another view that the Chinese students, while are hardworking, are unaware of what is going on in their own country, and not be trusted.

I think they are wrong. And here is why; what I am going to do is provide some numbers. Without data, everything else is just opinion. I have written a version of this quote a number of times on this and other sites. Here are some worth noting. (The figures I am posting are from last year as this year’s final numbers do not come out until October.)

Here is a brief lesson in math. This past year 77% of the students who submitted 800 score (the highest possible score) on the physics SAT subject test were from china. This is stunning in and of itself. However, when you take into consideration that our Chinese applicant pool comprises just 6% of our applicants then you know that the Chinese students are over-represented at the top by several orders of magnitude.

Moreover, it is not just physics. Average SAT 2 Scores for students from China: physics: 791/800, Chemistry 787/80 on Chemistry. The median SAT 2 math score for entering students from China (over 100 students): 800. Yes, 800. Nowhere in the history of my university has any subgroup ever done anything remotely like this. However, scores are just one measure. Graduation ceremonies recognize outstanding achievement. Were high school or university, Asian student again and outperform Non-Asians.

Here is where I start to shake my head in disappointment at our current government policy. There very students, the best and the brightest in the entire US, would, for the most part, love to be able to stay in the US, get great jobs, and eventually obtain a green card and then ultimately citizenship.  And what could be better for this country? To have the very best students be a part of the innovative leaders who will guide us out of economic stagnation seems like a recipe for success. Unfortunately, the US government has a very different take away from all these great students wanting to be a part of the American Dream. As I have already written in previous posts, and as the film I am associated with "Will Work for Words", demonstrates, we are sending the vast, vast majority of these students back to China. Our tiny number of spaces open each year for work visa assures this. So instead of having them here spending money, creating jobs as CEOs and entrepreneurs, we are sending them to China to do the same. Again this is fact not opinion. The 120 colleges and universities who have written to the leaders of the US have asked them to revise this policy for the benefit of the country. However, politicians, these days, side with those readers of the Post who think it is far better to ship them back to China. And so they are going and taking jobs and money with them.

If someone can explain why this is good for the US and for the world economy I hope they will post here or at least email me so I can stand corrected. As long as there is data and logical support, I promise I will apologize in public for all the controversial things I have just said. But at the moment I am feeling optimistic I won’ have to do this. And also immensely sad that I am correct about this. Contradiction is built in to human nature.

Moreover, there are a number of posts forthcoming in which I think I will be able to say the same thing. Stay tuned. It’s going to get messy.

Note: The photographs are of Asian students dong literally what they are doing metaphorically academically in our universities: getting to the top. The last photo is of a student who as just climbed the 5^th of toughest mountains in China. This represents the future the US seems to want. Send the best and brightest back to China where they will work hard to rise to the top and create jobs and wealth there. Some would say good riddance. I would say bad policy. And bad business. As one president famously said: "The business of America is business.” However, our policies seem to undercut this statement. It needs to be retired. Let those young strivers rise elsewhere. We are, perhaps, too old in our thinking to want to be the shining city on the hill we used to be.