The current university crackdown in the U.S. is not limited to pro-Palestinians, they're also targeting Chinese professors.

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1906556534005649599

The current university crackdown in the U.S. is not limited to pro-Palestinians, they're also targeting Chinese professors. Just today, two new cases surfaced. In Indiana, an incredibly dystopian case (arstechnica.com/security/2025/) where a tenured professor and prominent computer scientist—Xiaofeng Wang—disappeared 2 weeks ago with his wife (also employed at the university) after FBI agents raided his home in a fleet of unmarked cars and hasn't been heard from since. His entire profile, email account, and phone number were quietly erased by his university and so were those of his wife. When questioned, they refused to say why. It's like he never taught there, despite having done so for the past 20 years. And in Florida, another case (tampabay.com/news/education) of a Chinese professor—Kevin Wang—fired under a new state law "that limits public universities from employing people from so-called 'countries of concern,' including China, Cuba, Iran, Russia and Venezuela." Ironically, Kevin Wang left China and moved to the U.S. because he says he faced "political repression" in China, as he felt he couldn't express his political opinion there. Turns out in the U.S. it's even worse: he gets fired despite having the "right" political opinion (criticizing the Chinese government), on the simple basis of his country of origin. This is not new, Chinese professors, and scientists more broadly, have been a target in the U.S. for many years, starting with the FBI's "China initiative" in 2018 that effectively labelled any ethnic Chinese a potential "Chinese spy." Stanford University did research on the matter last year (sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/r) and the impact has been incredibly self-defeating: it spurred a 75% increase in Chinese scientists leaving the U.S. (!), with two thirds moving to China. Among those remaining in the U.S. to date, an insane 61% say they are considering leaving the country, with 72% reporting that they "do not feel safe as academic researchers", mostly because of "U.S. government investigations into Chinese-origin researchers." These new cases certainly won't help.