 We're back we're live, I'm Jay Fidel, it's a three o'clock block here on Think Tech. And we're talking about global connections, we're talking about Chinese nationals in American universities. Should they be barred from American universities? This is a serious problem. It's a problem for the United States because of our lack of foreign policy, and it's a problem for them of course. Chung Wang, the practicing lawyer in Minnesota, graduate of the University of Minnesota joins us with our old friend Russell Yu, a practicing lawyer in Hawaii, and who is very familiar with things in China because he spent something like 200 years over there, am I right? Something like that, Jay. Okay, we're going to conduct this entire show in Mandarin, if you don't mind, ready? Go. Okay. Okay. So the first thing I'd like to discuss is exactly what is the foreign policy of the United States toward China and toward Chinese students. Russell, why don't you talk about that? Sure. I think the policy of the United States since 2016 has been one of really no foreign policy except to really try to shut any kind of engagement or dialogue with China. It's not only interesting what the topic we're going to talk about, but many things, the U.S. trade war, now we have the technology war, and now we're having the whole concept of disengagement. So we've seen a gradual policy that says cut China out. And what's disturbing, Jay, is that now that it's pushed to a bipartisan political world in America where things are giving ominous sides, not only of the relation to China, but also our allies in Europe and around the world. So it's a little bit disconcerting that it is going this far, but there's no articulated policy of how we deal with this. Well, let's be optimistic for a minute. John, can you deal with this? Is this reversible, or is this already have sort of traction where this country and other countries are down on China for reasons that are really not valid? Well, before I answer your question, I just want to add one note to Russell's comments. I heard these comments from one diplomat from China and one diplomat from the United States from Foreign Service. When they talk about foreign policy, and they said the foreign policy is domestic policy. So the purpose of foreign policy is what's going to happen domestically. So we can say that we cannot figure out what exactly is the foreign policy, you know, the derogatory remark towards our allies, and then this very hostile attitude toward China. What exactly they want, their audience is inside the United States. So that is, you know, even it appears they have absolutely no strategy, no agenda, but they do have audience inside the United States. So here's my full note. Go back to your question, Jay. Is that reversible? You know, there is a tendency, you know, if the government starts something, and there is a, they're going to go, even we, it's like you drive a car, if you hit the brakes, the car will still go on for, you know, maybe 20 yards. So even we change the leadership, you know, earlier next year. And this entire attitude, all these policy and executive order already in place, you can reverse the executive order, but you cannot reverse entire hostility in a culture inside a certain department, particularly department of state and department of justice and FBI. So that will go on for considerable while. On the other hand, the big, you know, talk about the larger picture, you know, there was a newly released pool in all the developing countries, developed countries, you know, Sweden, Australia, Japan, Korea, the United States, UK, and look at their attitude toward China and the Chinese. There is a dramatic increasing of the negative view of China in recent years and it's a very sharp decline of favorable views of China in the recent years. So in the foreseeable future, I would, I would put it about 10 years, 80 years mark, you know, this trend will, this overall trend and the overall environment will be pretty unfriendly to China. That's not healthy at all. It's not healthy at all, it could lead to fisticuffs. And so one question I would ask you, looking at all of that, let's suppose that we take a fresh look at American foreign policy to China, say in January, say January 20th, for example, what kind of changes would you make? Changes to deal with, you know, some of Xi Jinping's aggressive maneuvers, you know, in the South China Seas, in Hong Kong, human rights, all that. What could America do in its foreign policy to make things better between us and between China and the world? I would defer this to Russell first and I may add something later. Okay, Russell, your turn. Well, I think there is a de-escalation policy, which we should take. Again, national security is important as it articulated, but I think a de-escalation meaning that certain areas where we don't, like for this immigration topic we're talking about, we don't take a black view point, we take a very nuanced approach. I think having a de-escalation meaning that I think both sides will need to start to give up something, for example, again, this is one area where just even through the policies restricting immigration and all this, second is again, what we'd be seeing is an attack on Chinese businesses, more hostility towards WeChat, TikTok, again, there may be a better approach than what's happening now where we simply have a presidential ban and say, completely get out of here, you have to do it our way. So again, I think it's using rule of law or logic and more engagement. I think that word is engagement. It's a very important thing that we are really missing through this administration, a lack of engagement. Chang, you're nodding, yes. What would you add to that? Yes, I totally agree with Rosso that the Obama administration's policy was not perfect, but it worked. It worked very well, and the TPP should have worked, but TPP was killed by this administration. So the engagement largely has been criticized, but it's much, much better policy than decoupling and the current very hostile environment, hostile policy. But on the other hand, there's one thing I do want to point out, the current hospitality towards China and the Chinese, including Chinese Americans, are really part of the campaign strategy. GOP circulated a campaign memo in April 2020, 80 pages, something. The whole strategy is going down to one sentence, don't defend Trump, attack China. So that is part of the whole situation we are in right now, internationally, particularly with relation to China, it's part of the campaign. But a lot of people inside GOP, they keep attacking and attacking, and somehow they just forget it's part of the campaign. You know, if you want to lie, you're going to convince yourself first, right? And so they began to convince themselves that there's a real enemy, there's a real danger, and they kind of forget they mixed up the campaign rhetoric with their true belief because they do not believe in anything. They don't really have an ideology or principle to stick to. That's one thing. On the other hand, look at the human nature. We always pick up some disadvantaged group to blame and have a scapegoat. I'm on the board of Minnesota Zoo, so I went to the zoo and I talked to the horsekeepers. And the horsekeepers said among all the horses, 20 horses, they're almost always going to have one weakest horse to be the, you know, all these horses going to bully him or hurt little horse. And even these little horses, if the horsekeeper removed these little horses to another area, and they will quickly find another horse, little horse to bully too. So this is part of human nature. So now, you know, lucky us, now it's Chinese, you know, a couple of years ago was mostly, now it's just Chinese. And who, maybe next year, going to be somebody else. And that is a very, very sad situation. But, you know, we have to just accept that and the people just want to have somebody to bully too. I don't accept it. Right? Thinking people do not accept it. We are better than that. General Allen, what Chiang has said, again, Chiang and I had this discussion previously. And, you know, going back to the Obama administration and Bush administration, Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense, he coined the whole concept or strategy is basically United States should build a high fence around the small yard, meaning that we should selectively pick our little flights and, you know, look at, if we're going to do this scrutiny of the Chinese, but not do a blanket thing again. And this goes to part of the prior administration, which was really an engagement, constructive engagement, you know. And I think this is part of where we need to untrack and get on that track. What scares me more, Jay, is that, again, this is China's year in which they do a five-year plan. Okay. And the next five-year plan is going to be held this month with their Congress. And they're coming with the stool circulation policy. Okay. Two things that are going to concentrate. Well, one is the domestic economy consumption. But the other thing is to rapidly build their high tech. Okay. This is the accelerated brakes on their end, you know, which means that, again, it does no good for both sides. We have this thing that's going on. And so China goes into another gear. And the question is, then it's harder to de-accelerate later as we go down this road, this whole thing of disengagement will maybe impossible, you know. I think, to me, my personal opinion, as you know, Jay, just living in China, working at U.S. law firms, I think really what has been done is they put China back against the wall, where, as a lawyer, you know that when you litigate, you're going to have to leave some wiggle room for settlement. When you have no room, you're never going to settle. This is when I'm afraid we're at that crossroad, the most dangerous point of that intersection, where there's no room to negotiate anything. There's no settlement. There will never get something. And so China is the plan B. And this dovetails in our discussion today, because it means a lot of these intellectuals that would be helping our technical advantage or the technical world. China is going to keep them from going in. And they're going to say, we don't want to go to U.S. We're going to stay in China, help out this five-year plan. And you know what? There's going to be a big vacuum. As you know, most of Silicon Valley, all of our high tech is built upon a lot of foreign talent. Okay. And this is where we're going to bite ourselves in the foot. Okay. Just because we've gone in this road that there's no point in returning. Let's segue to that part of our discussion today. So we have a really non-functional foreign policy toward China. It's non-engagement. And it's a lot of xenophobia and isolationism and nationalism and all the wrong things. And of course, just as Chang Wang says, this is for the campaign. This is trying to appeal to Trump's base and tap into that racial hatred that he likes to tap into the base. So the question I put to you was, how does that affect the Chinese students that are here or potentially could come here and participate in the American academic world and the American business world, the American world in general? It's a put-off. You know, just looking at it from as far as we've gone in this discussion, it's not a friendly place for them. So query, you know, how offended are they? How affected are they? How ticked off are they? How disappointed are they? I mean, this is the Statue of Liberty doesn't work anymore. So Chang Wang, you know, are you in touch with the academic world? Could you speak to that? Yeah, I can't. I do can speak. I speak from my personal experience. I came to the United States 20 years ago as an international student on iPhone visa. Then for the first three, four years. And every time I go back to China, not actually the first six years. And I spent three years in graduate school and three years in middle school. At that time, before Obama administration, that was under George W. Bush administration. The visa policy is very strict. So every international student, every Chinese student, because of the visa policy, so how many, how you treat, how US government treated Chinese visa applicant will be exactly how the Chinese foreign ministry treated you American visa applicant. So at that time, the visa, even my graduate program was three years. My law school was three years. But my visa is only good for six months. So every time I travel, I go outside the United States. Either go to Europe or go back to China. I need to go to US embassy to reapply another visa stamp to enter the United States. So that was, I counted probably I have 15 visa stamps on my passport. Every time I leave, I need to, if out of the six months period, I need to reapply. I was determined. I was determined because I was a student of 1980s Chinese cultural renaissance. And his clothes is the same in China, compared to the US civil rights movement in the United States. So America is my, I did one post study in the United States. I was so determined. I don't mind waiting in line for three, four hours to get another visa stamp. And then Obama administration dramatically improved that. So I know Obama administration, if you are for you, if you are a Chinese student, four years undergraduate program, you can stay in the US for four years. You can travel back and forth without worrying about the visa. And to be denied entry in the next time, or be denied visa, you know, that is just a blanket, you know, most reasonable, reasonable, you know, visa policy. And then we see the, you know, the huge increase of the Chinese student presence in the United States. And then now the Chinese students representing, I have the number from BBC right now, representing about 20%, there are nearly 400,000 Chinese students currently in the US colleges and universities in 2019, more than one-third of the country's international students. Think about it, one-third of all foreign students are Chinese students. And the Chinese students spent, listened to the number, $15 billion intuition payment to the US university and colleges. That not including rent and airline ticket and all the food and supply, everything they buy. I will not be surprised that even number easily get to a 20 billion. And the current visa policy toward Chinese students is basically to intimidate them to come to the United States to study. You know, not only they are going after STEM students, scientific, technology, engineering, mathematics, they are targeting also economic finance students and even political science students. So that, the Chinese student, I read a lot of reports from the BBC and from other news outlets in Chinese language and in English language. So the, the, the pervading feeling of the Chinese students in the United States is regret. And there are very few people like me, they are so determined and said, I just want to be here. And no matter what, you know, I trust the United States. And I think that this is just a detour of the United States. But a lot of students, you know, I hear this quote and I give you this quote. You know, I hear this quote from Chinese students, students. You know, Obama is what America pretends to be. And Trump is America really is. That's horrible. It is horrible. It is horrible. From the Chinese, not only Chinese students and not the, you actually, the Chinese student is not from him. He is quoting some European in the correspondent. So, and that is one is regret. You know, that's a few so sorry we made the wrong points to study in the country. Yeah, let me, let me talk to Russell about that. Russell, regret, you know, this is a, this is a, it pierces your heart to think that all these 400,000 students who are here, you know, in good faith, trying to learn and contributing to the country and the world have regret. So the question is, if I give you 400,000 students, Russell, and a good number of them have learned to have regret over the past few years, what does that mean on a macro basis? How do they conduct themselves differently now that they have understood regret? Well, Jay, I think what we're going to see is probably a really challenging fact, first of all, for students coming here. As Sean has mentioned, that's 15,000, 15 billion dollars. That was in 2018 now, okay. And, and that's going to really hurt us because 15 billion dollars, the only other export industry that outrances, outranks education is the aircraft and machinery, like the Boeing planes. So 15 billion is nothing to sneer at. It's interesting because this whole effort is a DOJ-led effort, not the FBI initiative. It's a DOJ effort. And where's the Department of Commerce? You know, again, that's just on the business side. But again, what I see getting back to your question is that we're going to see a lot of the students in China possibly going to the European countries. And again, it may never come back here for a while, you know, because of the concern. And as you know, Jay, just seeing the Chinese students in China, most of them have, their whole lives have studied English to get to this point. Their whole lives, the parents have been saving just to get that education. That's the culture, you know. And when it changes, it's going to really be a shakedown for many Chinese who realize that maybe this is not the dream and we're going to go elsewhere again. So I think it has a broader effect just purely on an economic effect for the American side, because it is bigger. And again, getting back to what I said earlier, the concern again is that after COVID-19, nations are scrambling to look at artificial intelligence, digital transformations. And Stanford had a study done in China this May of the top 135 executives that did over $1 trillion of global business. And their thing is prediction is the Chinese economy. They're going to go through digital transformation. And likewise, in the U.S., we're behind the rate, and we're going to get all of these kind of skilled talent to actually make our society kick in, to be more digitally connected, to transform our country. Because that's where the economic battlefield is headed on a macro level. For us to say, number one, if you look in that sense, we need the talent. We need the research. We need innovation. And that's so important by shutting this pipeline. They say once we shut it down or close it down, it's going to be another good eight to 10 years before it's going to restart. Eight to 10 years means many more years in the business world, from a macro point of view. We're just going to be way behind the curve at this point. Just being in China, seeing how they use digital payments in WeChat, and you've seen that, they're like 10, 15 years ahead of us using QR codes. For example, the success of controlling the pandemic in China, you had to scan a QR code before you could enter your subway. And that QR code made sure that if you sat next to somebody, maybe 10 feet away in your train, they had COVID-19, the government will find out who sat in this whole area and they will contact you and you will get tested. Real-time tracking, that's pretty creative. So, Chong, let me go to you for a minute and ask, what is the effect of this kind of restraint and intimidation of Chinese students? I keep thinking about Charles Dickens and the Christmas Carol, and the story of Christmas future, the nightmare, if you will, of Christmas future. So, I give you 10 years of this, maybe it can't be reversed, not right away. Chinese students, like everyone else, they see their lives as a valuable asset. They have to make a life, make a career, make a family, participate in commerce and the like. What happens to them? What happens to the country? If we intimidate them to the point where they have regret, and they turn around and they go somewhere else, what happens to them? What happens to us? What happens to our aspirations for American exceptionalism, although that's a term not in legitimate use right now? Well, part of your question actually was well answered by Russell's comments, and I just agree that every single word he said. On the other hand, let me clarify regret. There are a lot of Chinese students regret we came to the United States, instead of Canada, Australia, other English speaking countries, but these people are still believed, the vast majority of Chinese students and international students still believe in American exceptionalism. They believe, still believe America is exceptional. It's not, the reason they came to the US instead of Canada, Australia, or the UK, because they believe the United States is exceptional. So there, and on the one hand, there are still a lot of confidence in American system by the international students. On the other hand, they're stuck here. If they started their program, they're in the second year or in the third year, they can't believe, they can just simply leave. They're not a tourist because there are a lot of visitors. They're stuck here and they are baffled, perplexed, these are oriented, you're not scared, you name it. And of course, that is a part of, probably, there's exactly some trauma-nutrition officials' intention, intimidate you, threaten you, harass you, make yourself deport. If you're in the second year, third year, who cares? Go, they go home, go back to China. That is the intention. But just think, put yourself in their shoes. They can't simply leave. They pay two-year tuition, auto-state tuition. Remember, all the international students pay auto-state tuition. They don't pay new state tuition. So that is, U of M, it's about $40,000 a year. Most public universities are somewhere between $30,000 to $40,000 a year. They already paid. They cannot easily transfer their credits to another university in Canada. So they have to wait and see. So they just, that is a very, very sad situation. And I totally sympathize with them. But on the other hand, what about the foreign students? They are not here yet. They are in high school. They're preparing for study abroad. Because in Japan, in Korea, in China, in Hong Kong, in Taiwan, in the most, particularly Asian countries, is a no-brainer for middle-class families to send their kids to study abroad. It's just a part of the standard. Looking for a better life, yeah. Russell, in your notes on this, you mentioned an executive order that was particularly troublesome. Can you talk about that? And really, and I'll be asking Chang about this, too, what should the United States do to correct the errors here in attracting Chinese students? So but let's talk first about the executive order and how would you deal with that in a new administration? I think the order that was issued May 29th this year by President Trump, it bars the entry of these visas to Chinese students in the U.S. who, in the graduate program, who have been associated with or with any PRC type of military affiliation. And again, it also says that under this order that the State Department can use its powers to consider visa revocation, okay, and it can direct the State Department to come up and review immigration measures to deal with this issue. A lot of this is still right now unclear as to the procedure of the State Department, and a lot of it gives black discretion, to look at students entering in to apply for a visa. And it might be that somebody may have had a past affiliation years ago and no longer has any affiliation, and everybody's thrown into the same category, it's a blanket category. There's also question marks as to, essential part of the education also is for the students to get what is called OPT, optical trading after they graduate. And usually there's a time period that they hear, they do research with companies, which again, contributes to a better technology development research for us here. So that's what the order says, okay. The problem is it's too broad and second of all, the question is whether or not there's really justification for this, okay. From what I understand, they are already existing procedures that deals with this, that this order goes over, it overreaches them to it. And so again, so the question is whether... What would you do, Russell, to correct the era of this order? I mean, let's make you the president. I always wanted you to be the president. Let's make you the president on January 20th. What is your first action with regard to this executive order? Well, I think the problem is the executive order that grants these powers to the State Department to do a revocation of visa for one, the vetting process for the visa, especially what Chang has mentioned earlier, students cannot leave the country. Say it's a holiday of the fact that their visa can be rejected, okay, revoked. So this obviously certainly is something that we need to remove away. I think going back to what we had previously under the bottom of Bush administration would do a lot to get it back in track, okay. To provide clarity, to provide used existing procedures we have. And again, it's resetting the policy back again. I think that's important. Second, I think if it's national security interest, I think that the government has to work closely with the university to ensure best practices are followed. For example, there is a action brought against it. I believe it was a Harvard professor for being involved in some kind of program with the China side. Again, it's really having the universities to make sure that they follow best practices of even their own faculty. So it may not only just be a problem of the Chinese students that enter into the US. Again, it seems to me that really the problem is we're creating this chilling effect. We are also causing, I think, giving us economic problems. And Chang mentioned something a minute ago about many of the students come from middle class families. And this is their lifelong pursuit to get an education in America. And again, China middle class is between 500 to 70 million. And again, this class, usually people are generally coming to America for an education. And again, it's just a big market for the US from an economic broader point of view. And I think that that's important. So again, back to the question, I think we need to scale back that executive order. I think we need to go to an acceptable level. But we did before under Obama administration and working with the university to create better practices. The universities, they're in trouble financially, especially now. A lot of them are closed. They can't collect tuition. So they need help. And this is a source of funds for them. But we're almost out of time, Chang. And I'd like to ask you one last question. This is not an easy question. You know, we have learned here that American foreign policy translated into, as you mentioned, American political policy, American election campaign policy, really doesn't work very well. And it isn't working well now. But my question to you, it's in a larger sense, is we see here this administration taking off after the Chinese in so many ways, so many inappropriate ways. And we see other immigration policies that are profoundly affecting our image in the world as a liberal democracy. We have to deal with that. We have to recover from that. And my question is, what can we learn from the Chinese student phenomenon that we've been talking about in a larger sense to correct our image in the world, to have immigration policy that works for everybody, not only the Chinese, but every single group, every single individual who would like to find education or sanctuary in this country under the lamp of the Statue of Liberty? Can you talk about that for one minute? I'm sorry to limit you to that. You are there for one minute. The question, to be honest, I don't have a direct answer to that question. It's so profound. I still have this vivid memory of my first time where I stand on the land of the United States. And I just couldn't believe that I'm in America. And today, I'm part of the American community. And when I read the report from New York Times, I give you the title of the report. It's the world look at the United States with sympathy. And I think instead of regret, sympathy is a better world. The world look at the United States, don't see a leader, don't see a beacon, don't see freedom. They see a failed state. They see a dysfunctional state. And they sympathize with the United States. And so no matter how hard we treat foreign country, foreign students, international students, minorities, the most vast majority of these victims being bullied by us, they still believe in us. So that's something I don't take for granted and should be grateful. There was one problem for some of the people in the administration is they never feel grateful for anything. And they feel victimized. And don't you feel it's so ironic that people in power, they feel they are victim. And they're real victim. They don't feel, you know, hostility. Instead, they feel sorry for the abusers. Oh, wow. What a conversation. Chan Wong, thank you so much for joining us. Russell, thank you for setting this up and coming on again. I hope we can do another show like this much more to discuss. And there's so many things happening worthy of discussion. Russell Liu, Chan Wong, Aloha. Thank you so much. Thank you.