China Chases Silicon Valley Talent Who Are Worried About Trump Presidency (cnbc.com)

China is trying to capitalize on President-elect Donald Trump's hardline immigration stance and vow to clamp down on a foreign worker visa program that has been used to recruit thousands from overseas to Silicon Valley. From a report on CNBC: Leading tech entrepreneurs, including Robin Li, the billionaire CEO of Baidu, China's largest search engine, see Trump's plans as a huge potential opportunity to lure tech talent away from the United States. The country already offers incentives of up to $1 million as signing bonuses for those deemed "outstanding" and generous subsidies for start-ups. Meanwhile, the Washington Post last month reported on comments made by Steve Bannon, who is now the president-elect's chief strategist, during a radio conversation with Trump in Nov. 2015. Bannon, the former Breitbart.com publisher, indicated that he didn't necessarily agree with the idea that foreign talent that goes to school in America should stay in America. "When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think ...," Bannon said, trailing off. "A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society."

Comments

This works for me

[rsilvergun]

I'm fully confident America has plenty of talent for Silicon Valley. China's welcome to flood their job market with cheap labor and devalue their Middle Class. I'm looking forward to the Chinese equivalent of Donald Trump pushing a popularist message when outsourcing and insourcing wrecks their economy too.

Re:This works for me

[geekmux]

China's welcome to flood their job market with cheap labor and devalue their Middle Class

Did you read the fucking summary even? $1 million signing bonuses are not cheap labor.

Huh, maybe you're right.

Maybe China doesn't pay their CEOs tens of millions of dollars to be able to afford that kind of expense.

Ain't it amazing what you can offer when the CEO doesn't make 500x more than the average skilled employee? I wonder when we'll learn that lesson...

Re:This works for me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fully confident America has plenty of talent for Silicon Valley. C

Yes of course but that talent will be eroded over time with these stupid policies. Keeping away immigrants such as the future the Elon Musks coming from South Africa, or their parents, such as the Lebanese immigrant father who gave birth to a guy named Steve Jobs... Yeah sure, sound like a really smart thing to do.

Re:This works for me

[Maritz]

The one advantage of the Chinese setup is you don't get a demagogue rising to the top purely by promising the ignorant and hateful everything they hope to get (basically make brown people go bye-bye isn't it?). I guess the next four years will reveal if that's important or not.

Re: This works for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you fucking kidding? You must know absolutely nothing about China's politics and history...

Re:This works for me

[jedidiah]

> When people stopped chasing after the American Dream to have it all and learn to live a modest lifestyle.

A "modest lifestyle" is for slaves and peasants. Even a single wide is better than some of the "modest" accommodations in western Europe.

Been there. Done that. No thanks.

Re:This works for me

[Jzanu]

I'm fully confident America has plenty of talent for Silicon Valley. C

Yes of course but that talent will be eroded over time with these stupid policies. Keeping away immigrants such as the future the Elon Musks coming from South Africa, or their parents, such as the Lebanese immigrant father who gave birth to a guy named Steve Jobs... Yeah sure, sound like a really smart thing to do.

This post deserves more attention.

Re: This works for me

[Rei]

Such an oversimplistic reading.

1) The real thing that led enabling Hitler was the battle with communism. The Communists plus the Nazis had finally achieved just barely over half of the votes, meaning that you had to work with at least one of them - something that the moderates found horrifying. Of course, many people who voted for the Nazis did so because they thought they were the only ones tough enough to stand up to the communists. Parliament ultimately sided with the Nazis, who had sold the public and parliament on the idea that there was an imminent communist revolution about to take place.

Summary: fearmongering (and outright fictions) about "the great threat if the other side seizes power" causes the public and parliament to acquiesce to someone they're very apprehensive about.

2) The way Hitler leveraged that into a dictatorship was through driving out those likely to oppose him on bills to consolidate his power, and negotiating with the rest. First, with fear of a Communist revolt stirred up by the Reichstag Fire, he got the Reichstag Fire degree passed, allowing for the elimination of his communist opponents. Intimidation from Nazi paramilitaries also managed to intimidate some other people from taking or attending office. The key element he needed to gain full state power was the Enabling Act, which required a sizeable supermajority. This was achieved with a combination of paramilitary intimidation and horse trading. The Catholics failed to see, until it was too late, how much of a threat he really was, and so traded the enshrinement of provisions favorable to the Catholic Church for the extra votes needed to get the Enabling Act passed.

Summary: Paramilitary intimidation and use of the powers of the state to get enough power to horse trade your way to complete control.

#1 is fully and completely applicable, and anyone who pretends it can't apply to the US is kidding themselves. #2 is at present, not applicable. However, I should stress "at present". First, the Republicans control all branches of government (or at least will shortly after appointing at least one, and likely two or more) Supreme Court justices. Fear of the base has so far shown effective at keeping wayward Republicans in-line. Republicans also control nearly the 75% of state legislatures needed to pass constitutional amendments. So the prospect of an "enabling act" type amendment is actually plausible, so long as the grounds for it can be stirred up.

Stirring up? You have a president elect who directly coordinated actions with foreign state intelligence services to dig up dirt on his opponents (as now admitted to by the Russians, both the coordination and the giving the info to Wikileaks). He obviously has no qualms about this sort of thing. Now he's getting the keys to the candystore, so to speak - full control over US intelligence services. J. Edgar Hoover managed to maintain a disturbing level of control through such means, and he's far from the limit of what sort of pressures can be exerted. Things need not be only backroom, Hoover-style blackmail, but can also be very public "airing of dirty laundry" to rally the public against desired targets - political or public, foreign or domestic.

One thing that Trump thankfully lacks is a paramilitary. As long as this remains the case, I'll feel a lot more comfortable.

But still uneasy.

No, I don't think that it's at all likely Trump will try to achieve "President for Life" status. Honestly, that's near the bottom of my list of concerns, and it's a long list. But I think it's naive to pretend that it couldn't happen, given the right combination of provocations. Nobody in Germany in the 20s would have ever guessed that the 30s would see them in a Nazi dictatorship. The concept seemed the height of absurdity.

Re: This works for me

[NetNed]

Well considering that the Smith Mundt act was repealed under President Obama, our government can now use propaganda on it's citizens. The dumbing down of the snowflake, "lets protest everything" generation makes it easier for them to push that, but they missed one thing. No one trusts the mainstream media here and it's losing viewers left and right. That's why they come up with sensationalism like this story to try and snag a viewer or clicker in with bullshit. Anyone with a little bit of reading comprehension can see past the bullshit. But back to your original, stupid post. Compared to China, we are a thousand times more free. Don't think so? Try the same protest we've seen over here in Tiananmen square. Enjoy the tank tread tattoo.

Re:This works for me

[cfalcon]

You're modded insightful? Fucking Mao was a populist demagogue who murdered like fifty fucking million Chinese. He's one of the top murderers in human history, and he happened within the lifetime of many alive today.

Re:This works for me

[__aaclcg7560]

so basically you are cattle

Why would I be "cattle" if I'm not following the herd that's stampeding for no reason at all?

Fake news?

[CajunArson]

Can we contact Obama to have him punish Slashdot for posting more fake news?

Meanwhile, to burst your propaganda bubble about China is so welcoming and "tolerant" of immigrants, try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Fake news?

[AmiMoJo]

China is strongly right wing. Children are expected to look after their parents in old age, for example, rather than the state providing as it would in a left wing socialist country. China is also big on defining and enforcing morality, much like the right in the US, just sometimes in the opposite direction (e.g. forced abortions rather than forced births).

In fact it's kinda odd that Trump doesn't admire them more. They control their media, make sure it only prints the "truth". Trump seems to support that. They have lots of protectionism to keep their workers employed in factories, something else Trump is rather fond of. And they definitely have a "China first" policy.

Re:Fake news?

[Viol8]

Sure, because left wing apologists for totalitarian regimes are just a straw man invented by the Evil Right as an excuse to criticise those caring sharing people on the left who only want whats best for their fellow man.

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

Bad is better than Worst

[gsslay]

Not that I want to be defending the buffoon Trump or racist Bannon, I would hope that anyone prepared to live under Chinese one-party censorship can handle most of what Trump's America might throw at them.

Re:Bad is better than Worst

[CajunArson]

Do you have any evidence that this Bannon person is a racist?

For example I have incontrovertible proof that, Keith Ellison, who is a front runner to run the Democratic National Committee, is an anti-semitic bigot.

You can listen to an analysis of him right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Bad is better than Worst

[Ryanrule]

Yes we do. Much more than some Neo nazi YouTube video

And is Steve wrong?

[FlyHelicopters]

"A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society."

What about that statement is wrong? From a simple economic point of view, if you have no monetary value, then go die in a ditch like a good citizen.

Except, that we ARE more than an economy, humans are more valuable than just what they provide to the GDP of a nation.

I don't see China leaping over themselves to allow Americans to fully own businesses there, yet we let them do it here. Either China needs to open up, or we need to shut them out, either solution is fine.

Re:And is Steve wrong?

[gsslay]

Well, if you want to remove the statement entirely from its context; yes it's not wrong. Put it back in its context, and you have a meanly mouthed expression with a subtext of racism and xenophobia.

Competitive Advantage

[lazarus]

If you train them in your country, you should try to keep them in your country unless you think your educational institutions are no more than money makers. Otherwise you will eventually lose the competitive advantage that you have over other countries that do not invest as heavily in education. If you are concerned about immigration in this regard then you should change the caps you place on the number of foreign students you allow.

Also, China can chase all they want, but I doubt that there is going to be a mass exodus of top talent to a country with a stifling authoritarian system in place. Top talent really requires freedom -- I think history teaches us at least that much.

Exodus of Jewish Scientists?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shades of pre-war Germany.

Re:Exodus of Jewish Scientists?

[Jzanu]

Shades of pre-war Germany.

Someone is trying to hide your comment, but it deserves to be seen.