alt Hacker News>I doubt many of the researchers migrating even want Chinese citizenship and the chains that come along with it, so why do most people (presumably Americans) keep harping on and on about it?
Because it's an important matter regarding immigration. If you want to live in a country, you might want to actually be a citizen of that country. Does that need explaining?
>Once you're invited by the CCP for your exceptional research background, you're literally given an open chequebook for both your personal compensation and your future research endeavors.
None of which is related to immigration.
>You're allowed to take your family along with you too, and the language barrier doesn't translate in the professional setting. >Racism is a non-issue since I doubt these researchers will even be interacting with elements of that segment of Chinese Han society, unless they choose to.
Are you seriously suggesting that people can literally just not engage at all with the society they live in?
This just reads like deeply, deeply delusional reasoning attempting to paint China as a good alternative.
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> paint China as a good alternative.
I don't think OP is doing this, just stating the obvious. The invitation implies $$$ but not naturalization.
> If you want to live in a country, you might want to actually be a citizen of that country. Does that need explaining?
Yeah might, so it is big question depending on the situation, and even bigger once you got more passports or permanent residence. For example people intentionally avoid US permanent residence or citizenship for global taxation.
> Are you seriously suggesting that people can literally just not engage at all with the society they live in?
All the time, especially the US expats in China. They tend to live in nice communities for foreigners in a few tier-1 cities, they go to western style international hospitals and their kids goes to fancy international schools. Basically employers have everything prepared nicely for them, hence the contrast of China between foreigners and citizens.
In terms of racism in China or east Asia as a whole, there is practically no problem for white ppl, small problem for indians, big problem for blacks.
In the reverse direction in the US there are Chinese/Latino spending their lives in their own ethnic community without speaking English at all, it is not that uncommon, just invisible.
Have you ever lived overseas? Honestly you sound delusional. Do you think the USA makes it easy to become a citizen? Short of that, there is a wide spectrum on how countries treats immigrants. This is the most important factor for people actually living in a place. Acting like the bar for living somewhere is citizenship is nuts.
> Are you seriously suggesting that people can literally just not engage at all with the society they live in?
This pretty much confirms you have never lived overseas lol. Anyone who has will have met many people that achieve this. Like living anywhere immersing yourself in your surroundings (w/e that means to you) takes extra effort. Most people go overseas to work. It's not playtime. With that comes a built in community.
> None of which is related to immigration
How is getting money and support to live in a place not related to immigration?
Why are you so reactive about something you clearly know nothing about? Because China bad?
Citizenship is quite politicized in the US, but in Asia (and probably most of the world) most immigrants will never obtain citizenship. There are many reasons for this I can get into if you want, but it's a tangent. All this generally entails, as opposed to permanent residency, is that your children won't be citizens by default, you can't vote, and that you need to occasionally notify immigration of where you live. On the other issue - yeah you can 100% not interact with locals if you choose.
Any position that's hiring foreigners is going to have multiple foreigners. And it creates a scenario where, by default, foreigners will hang out with foreigners and locals will hang out with locals. The same is true outside of work as there tend to be large expat communities everywhere and even schools/communities almost entirely for expats.
Immigrants (especially in Asia) are never going to blend in with the local population naturally. The cultures are so far removed that you'll never 'fit in.' That doesn't mean you can't make local friends and acquaintances, but that you can choose not to. And yeah I'd highly recommend almost anywhere in Asia to people, including China. It's an amazing place to raise children - ironic given Asia's at the forefront of the global fertility crisis.
It's nothing what like you probably imagine if you've never been. You can find about a zillion videos of people vlogging about their life in Asia. Here [1] is some random video from an American in China. Granted, he speaks crazy good Chinese so it's a different perspective than the one I'm talking about, but he can hit on more issues re:China. I've visited China, but never lived there. He's been there 16 years.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqVlKItJYnk