SinoDefence Forum

Geographer

Associated Press

I remember reading about Tsien Hsue-shen on Wikipedia one late night, amazed that he was hounded so much like Wen Ho Lee just because he was Chinese and lived in an era of irrational anti-Communist fervor. Imagine what could have been if the US hadn't driven him from Caltech back to China. How many Caltech-educated, Jet Propulsion Laboratory-founding aerospace engineers could China have recruited? He proved a huge asset to their rocket and space program and the current taikonauts owe a lot of him and his colleagues in China.

vesicles

I have heard of another story. Qian didn't want to go back to China, and the US govn't didn't want him to go back either. Apparently China made an offer the US couldn't refuse and they were forced to send Qian back to China. I think the story specifically mentioned the involvement of Zhou Enlai. I have no clue how true it is. This is the version that my parents believe.

Of course, the other side of the story was that after some Chinese national talked with Qian at a meeting of some sort, his security clearance was immediately taken away ( I think he was a pretty high ranking officer in the US army, possibly a colonel). That's why Qian decided to go back.

pla101prc

the guy was a legend, read about his stories back when i was in elementary school. RESPECT

Spike

Qian dithered about returning to China after he was wrongfully accused of being a communist and stripped of any access to his life's work at Caltech. I read that he at first decided to go back to China on an invitation, then changed his mind but by then the US decided to lock him up. After five years of house arrest, the US traded him to China in exchange for American PoW's from the Korean War. Qian wanted to stay in the US but had little choice in the matter.

Interestingly, he left all of his research papers behind, although they were out of date by then, and they were not returned to him until much later in his life at the urgings of his former colleagues at Caltech.

pla101prc

i remember some US official said something along the line of "one Qian is worth five army divisions"...a million dollar advice indeed

vesicles

Yep, I have the utmost respect for the guy. After all, who could command attention of the #2 leader of the then China (Zhou Enlai) and be labeled as the father of a nation's missile program? I was simply trying to convey a rumor I've heard about HOW he went back to China. I believe he had every right to want to stay in the US. That's what the other scientists had done, including the two Nobel Laureates, Yang and Lee. And thinking of it, that's what I'm doing too (not that I think I can even be remotely compared to any of them, just the fact that wanting to staying in States is not a bad thing for a Chinese)

Geographer

Do you have an English link to some of those stories pla101prc?

sidewinder01

I think you guys only heard the story from one side and believes everything wikipedia offers........ Qian of course wanted to stay in the States for obvious reasons, he was a scientist and his research is his life but If Qian so disliked the idea of going back to China, why would he help China at all all when he was "forced" to return. From what you guys are saying, he was bascially "kidnapped" in a fashion. United States is much more advanced than China in term of living standard for normal people like us as I lived in China in the first half of my life and know the difference quite well. But just having a nice house and a car is not the dream for everyone, and that is why a lot of scientists still returned back then and why people still will these days. Vesicles your statement about "the fact that staying in the US is not a bad thing for a Chinese" is just your own "fact", please do not make it sound like you are speaking for every single Chinese scientist in US. I am not trying to attack you personally at all, but please do not make false generial statement like that where you make every single Chinese scientist here sound like a no-heart human being who forgot their homeland the moment they saw something better in term of material.

FriedRiceNSpice

Not every Chinese person wants to live and work in the US. I want to work and live in Korea after I'm out of graduate school...

solarz

That makes no sense. Vesicles isn't generalizing, you are. When you dispute his statement, you are basically saying that wanting to stay in the US (or other foreign country) is a bad thing for a Chinese. That's a hell of a generalization.

Overseas Chinese have every reason to be proud of their choice. They can do much more for China overseas than they can back in China. In fact, there is a well-known adage among overseas Chinese: "You only understand patriotism once you leave your homeland."

Believe me when I say there is NO shortage of smart and capable people in China, and unless you possess expertise in cutting edge technology that does not exist in China, the only thing you'll be doing when you go back to China is to compete with other Chinese for a job.

On the other hand, if you stay overseas, you will be able to promote Chinese culture, values, and interests. Even if such contributions may be small and indirect, they are still more than you could ever do if you stayed in China.

Troika

Haven't had such a good laugh for a long time. But don't lets go any further off topic than it had already got.

Edit: If I really must give reasons...
1) Chinese emigrants do not stay overseas because they want to spread China's culture and safeguard her interests, that's just an audacious claim without any backup. They emigrate for the same reason anybody ELSE emigrate. Better money, better life, better prospects. China is not special.
2) A cursory glance at the overseas Chinese community shows you that a lot of them don't even speak Chinese or know the first thing about China, more than an ordinarily interested native. Once you get past the first generation, something called assimilation kicks in. They grow up in their name homeland, have friends from said homeland, immerse themselves in said homeland. They're American/ Australian/ Canadian/ Whatever. You are racist if you assume that the Chinese for some reason are immune to assimilation and stay Chinese mystically. Even in the more isolated communities like South East Asia the Chinese assimilate.
3) If for some reason the first two for some reason is untrue, what you are suggesting is that Chinese stay 'alien' for some reason, and continue to act on the interests of a nebulous ancestral homeland. Think carefully before you suggest that, because you are tarring a fairly large chunk of people with one brush
4) Even if they retain 'Chinese culture' for some reason, what does that mean? Does that mean they'll act in China's interest against their adoptive homelands? Fat chance.
5) The generalisation is not even true. China is experiencing a big bottleneck in management and other fields. There is a reason why hundreds of thousands of Western ex-pats work in China in creative, management and technical fields, and it's not just because they are Western multinational's men on the ground
6) Are you honestly saying that people WITH cutting edge expertise should go back to China? I promise you they don't. Go check out the top Chinese-American scientists in America and see how many are in a rush to go back to China. I can think of maybe 4.

Emigration is a personal choice and a freedom and is to be respected. I am an ex-patriate myself. But to dress it up as patriotism is mental gymnastic of the highest order and frankly smacks of hypocrisy.

solarz

You are rather short-sighted in your analysis.

1) The spread of Chinese culture, values, and interests need not be intentional, or politically motivated. Every person brings their own cultural values with them every time they interact with another person. Chinese people will join cultural events, community groups, and make socio-political decisions that are based on Chinese cultural values and interests. THAT is how overseas Chinese promote Chinese culture, values, and interests, and there is nothing "nebulous", "alien", or "tarring" about it!

2) Assimilation happens depending on the family. Some Chinese families decide to let their children assimilate, others strive to have their children learn the Chinese language and culture. You are also wrong in claiming that 2nd and 3rd gen Chinese cease to identify themselves as Chinese. Look at San Francisco: there are ethnic Chinese communities over there that were established in the 19th century. Look at how enthusiastic they were about Beijing getting the 2008 olympics. Look at the turn out and the outpouring of support among SF Chinese communities that happened during the torch relay.

Funny how some people automatically brand as "racism" any mention of an ethnic community being "special". What you fail to realize, however, is that the Chinese people is special. It is the Chinese culture that makes them special. Yes, the same culture that has enabled the Chinese to assimilate two foreign dynasties and turn them into Chinese dynasties. The same culture that has allowed a people to survive millenia of political upheaval and still retain a national identity. Anyone who denies the power of culture is just ignorant, or willfully blind for the sake of PC.

3) If you think overseas Chinese are not interested in defending Chinese interests, then you've obviously never read Chinese newspapers during the Tibet riots, or heard about the March 29 rallies, seen the nigh-unanimous support for the Beijing olympics, or the out-pouring of contributions for the Sichuan Earthquake.

4) No, I'm not saying people with cutting-edge expertise should go back to China. Whether they do or not is entirely their own decision. What I am doing is speaking out against the automatic (and entirely wrong) assumption that one can only contribute to China's development by going back to China.

Also, this whole "management-bottleneck" thing is bogus. I'm not saying that China doesn't need quality management personelle. I'm saying the idea that Western-trained management professionals can alleviate any kind of economic bottle-neck in China is nebulous at best, and wishful-thinking at worst. Western business dynamics is very different from Chinese business dynamics, and issues of corruption (in public or private sectors) aren't going to be resolved by an MBA from a western institution.

Finally, patriotism is a choice. You might not be interested in it, but that doesn't mean other people aren't. There is nothing conflicting about making a better life for yourself overseas while promoting the interests of your homeland at the same time. Not unless you are an adherent of the idea that global politics is a zero-sum game.

Personally, I don't wish to see a repeat of the Cold-War era, and I believe that globalization can be an engine for global cooperation. I also think that a global balance (as opposed to imbalance) of power is more conducive toward achieving that goal.

Edit:
Ever read about the contributions of overseas Chinese toward the Resistance War against Japan? Did you know that Sun Zhongshan's (Yat-sen) brother lived in America, and that he supported Sun Zhongshan financially throughout his revolutionary activities? Still think overseas Chinese don't act in China's interests?

vesicles

Wow, didn't realize that I started a whole discussion on this.

Well, I am NOT trying to generalize anything. In fact, I was NOT even trying to say that wanting to stay in the States is a good thing. All I was trying to say in my original post is that whether one wants to stay in a foreign country or to go back to China does NOT affect his/her greatness and my respect for them at all. what determines their greatness is their contribution to mankind, which has nothing to do with nationality.

vesicles

How did I make "every Chinese scientist sound like a no-heart human"? I was simply stating that whether one wants to stay abroad or go back to China does NOT affect their greatness as a scientist. I was telling people NOT to judge a person simlpy from where he/she decides to live. I think you are the one who is generalizing things. you imply that wanting to stay abroad makes a person "no-heart", which is very judgemental, in my humble opinion. This is to me a very blanketed statement. Plenty people go abroad for various reasons. Even many founding members of the CCP lived abroad for extensive amount of time. Heck, even the idea of communism came from abroad.

FYI, I am very proud of my Chinese heritage.

Johann

Geographer,

I don't think the FBI in 1949 had any idea how far Mao was willing to go to bring back Chinese scientists and engineers, and the depth of Mao's interest in strategic weapons programmes.

If the US Govt. was willing to revoke the security clearance of Robert Oppenheimer, a scientist as famous as Einstein, why wouldn't they be willing to do it to Qian who was a public unknown outside the rocketry circles?

After 1978, the pendulum swung the other way, and the US nuclear programme found itself penetrated at multiple levels.

Both represent irrational extremes