“In China, the government can control education, high schools, colleges, universities. We thought that the USA could be different," one student said.

Chinese students say they’re questioning their decision to study in the U.S. after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the federal government will attempt to “aggressively” revoke their visas.

Rubio said Wednesday that Chinese students “with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields” would be targeted.

Chinese students who spoke to NBC News on Thursday said that they came to the U.S. for freedoms they felt they did not have back in China but that now the Trump administration is starting to resemble the strict regime they left behind.

      • Catma@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Americans live in a country where people die on the regular because they cannot go to a doctor.

        They regularly have go fund me’s to pay for medical treatment.

        They live in a country that has no guaranteed paternity, sick, or vacation time.

        America is a shit hole country with the veneer of being rich.

        To sum it up America is a third world country with a Gucci belt. It has been that way for a while

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        A lot of those people have lived in shithole states their entire lives. I was speaking with a person from Uganda that would have voted for trump if he could vote. He lives in Washington State. I tried to explain to him that there’s a difference between rural Alabama and Seattle, that you get a lot of benefits most states don’t get. I don’t think he understood the difference.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Americans are drowning in propaganda. They’re constantly being sold expensive inferior replacements for any kind of public good or service.

        Nobody wants to live in a shit hole, but when every TV and radio is screaming “Don’t trust the government! Privatize! Privatize! Privatize!” that’s what people ultimately believe.

        Incidentally, the same news media selling privatization of every aspect of life is the one screaming “People in China are miserable! Everything is awful! Don’t be like the gross, stupid, evil Communists!”

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yes, but China is forward looking while doing shitty things. The US is putting it in reverse gear while doing shitty things.

    • angrystego@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      When they say they want freedom, they mean freedom to be openly racist and such. They’re not really interested in freedom in general, they want a strict regime.

  • Hardeehar@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Having a visa revoked is very different from being thrown into a jail or executed.

    They have every right to say that about the US, though, and I am happy they can voice thier opinion. Unlike in China, where the government will happily throw you and your family behind bars for saying something even approaching a bad opinion of government action.

    Edit - aww I think I irritated the tankies

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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      Have you not been watching the news? ICE has been detaining people left and right for months at a time, no charges whatsoever.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Sadly only left. None from there right. If they started detaining their own things might actually change.

              • Hardeehar@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I never said that and I recognize and I sympathize with their struggle. The Chinese people are fine, the PRC is not.

                I said the US is better than China. By what degree better is up for argument, sure. The reason the students are protesting here in the US and being heard, and being discussed on the news and openly here online, is because you and I (and everyone else) aren’t in fear that the government will drop police at our door because of this conversation.

                I am all for open public debate and discourse, downvotes and all because it’s our right to be heard. It doesn’t matter where, EU, US, or China.

                In the US, I have options on what to do if I feel the government isn’t doing the right thing. (Even moving to the EU). You can’t say that if you were a citizien living in China.

    • frunch@lemmy.world
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      They have every right to say that about the US, though, and I am happy they can voice thier opinion. Unlike in China, where the government will happily throw you and your family behind bars for saying something even approaching a bad opinion of government action.

      I think the concern here could be that revoking visas might be a first step towards a more intolerant policy a la China as referenced above

      • obvs@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’re right.

        In the United States, you don’t have to even criticize the government to have your whole family thrown behind bars.

        The United States will happily rendition your whole family to the United States Concentration Camps in El Salvador just for being in the United States.

        The United States doesn’t imprison the people who hate the country. It imprisons the people who loved the country the most.

    • AFaithfulNihilist@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Are you serious?

      They can’t voice their opinion.

      If they voice their opinion they get kicked out Even faster, but only after they’ve been put into a holding cell for days to weeks to months and maybe left to die of exposure for the crime of checks notes exercising the first amendment…

      People in America are being thrown into a gulag with no hope for release to work as slave labor until they die in a foreign country.

      There’s no silver lining here. We are becoming more like China. It’s not a good thing.

      • Hardeehar@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Did you read the article? They’re literally voicing their opinion, right there.

        Becoming more like China, sure, but saying that means it’s not as bad as China. Not a good thing, I agree.

    • Zexks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Trump imprisoned a college student for a negative article she wrote about him in her college paper opinion section. How is that any different.