Elon Musk Offered Chinese Green Card (politico.com)

hackingbear writes: During Elon Musk's trip to China for the ground-breaking of Tesla's first overseas factory, which will allow it to sell vehicles directly in the world's largest market for electric vehicles, he was offered a Chinese green card when he met with Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday in Beijing, where they discussed Tesla's China ambitions. "I love China and want to come here more often," Musk was quoted as saying in the report. "If you do, we can issue you a Chinese green card," the premier replied. Getting a Chinese "green card" has been described as "one of the most difficult tasks in the world." By 2017, only about 10,000 foreigners had been granted permanent residency since the program was introduced in 2004, out of an estimated 1 million foreigners living in China; recipients include Dutch scientist Bernard Feringa, who won the 2016 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Comments

It's a Trap!

[DatbeDank]

Any business leader, especially one the caliber of Elon Musk, willingly visiting China is taking a massive risk given the geopolitical machinations going on.
He'd have to be stupid to not think the Chicoms wouldn't in a heartbeat lock up the star of America's green tech.

I'd sooner visit Afghanistan, Yemen, or Somalia over China. At least the risks are obvious. In China, your freedom is on the whim of some self serving bureaucrats looking to boost their social credit scores.

No thank you!

Re:It's a Trap!

[dryriver]

Communists tend to "lock up" people with good intentions and high ideals - idealists, human rights campaigners, writers, intellectuals. Musk on the other hand is "billions of Dollars unencumbered by democratic ideals and human rights constraints just walked in the door" for China. Musk is exactly what they want - a wealthy industrialist who'll ignore China's horrific human rights abuses and manufacture and sell there anyway. Maybe they offered him the "Dragon Card" because he, for enough dough and benefits, offered to give China some of his SpaceX tech as well? The world is a complicated and often "upside-down" place. "Heroes of Innovation" are sometimes not "true heroes" in real life. A hero is someone who does NOT do anything he or she CAN do for big money. "Resisting temptation" and all that? =)

Re:It's a Trap!

[AuMatar]

Yes, because the US drives tanks over its protestors. And the US locks up political dissidents. Don't be fucking stupid.

Re:It's a Trap!

[LynnwoodRooster]

I didn't realize we lock up hundreds of thousands without trial and "re-educate" them about their wrong thinking... And good luck going to China and posting on WeChat something critical of the Government or President Xi. Here in the US, you can protest all you want; in China if you protest the Government. They love to arrest and lock up journalists who speak out against the Government. If the same was in the US, Jim Acosta would have been in prison most of the last 24 months...

Re:It's a Trap!

[Gavagai80]

Musk is from South Africa. He lives in the USA because it's expedient. He's not some American agent pushing America's agenda, and China knows that.

The risk of landing in prison is far, far higher in the USA than in China for anyone who isn't a political activist. The USA has 4% of the world's population and 22% of the world's prisoners.

Personal experience

[fubarrr]

Personal experience:

Chinese green card is a thing about which people have very mixed feelings. Application chances are totally random, privileges are a mixed blessing. Chinese state does not give a consistent message about what people should to expect from it.

In other words, it is a very hard to get, yet near meaningless document in comparison to 5 and 10 year work visas, aside you becoming fully subject to the glorious Chinese legal and tax system...

I knew one brilliant expat entrepreneur, undoubtedly a woman of exceptional achievement.

She lived in China since she was 14. She got her PhD in nanotechnology at 26, and by 27 she had an own chemical business that she made with money she won from "1000 talent plan" â" a national level scientific grant.

She owned a number of patents, and spoke 5 languages freely (including 2 Chinese dialects,) and she was a stunning tall beauty on top of that...

I would've said that is somebody was an ideal applicant, it would be her. She went to apply for that green card, and got a refusal notice _the next day_ with reason stated along the lines "we considered your high achievements, but you are too young and lack class..."

The attitudes of Chinese elites towards things like talent, merit, entitlement and personal achievement had not changed much in past decades. China was and is an extremely elitist and snobby country.

This attitude is pretty much telling "talented youngsters have no value besides being patronees,
and pages to the elite"

Re:Its So Much Quicker To Steal EV Tech...

[LynnwoodRooster]

LOL! Voting in China? You've ever lived there, or have Chinese family? Not a chance! The party controls all, down to the local level. IF your family is chosen as one that gets a vote (not all families get the right to vote), the Party chooses which member of your family gets to vote. It is 100% fascist/dictatorship based Government. There is a vote as much as there were votes for Saddam Hussein.

Here are the results of the latest 2018 election; the closest race was Zhang Jun who ran for the Minister of Justice, he sqeaked by with just 99.49% of the vote - that is a nail-biter in China!

There are NO elections in China, it's window-dressing only for outsiders to feel better about the Country. All positions are pre-selected, pre-arranged, and done only with the blessing of the Central Communist Party leadership only.