A Chinese-American engineer and two family members who allegedly conspired to steal sensitive information about Navy warships and smuggle it to China were indicted Tuesday on federal charges, authorities said.This brings up a related, but important question. Why do we have so many Chinese engineers working on our military systems? They become Nationalized - but they don't start that way.
The grand jury indictment charges Chi Mak, 65, his wife and brother with acting as agents of a foreign government without prior notification to the U.S. attorney general, according to the U.S. attorney's office.
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Federal officials said Mak took computer disks from Anaheim defense contractor Power Paragon, where he was lead engineer on a sensitive research project involving propulsion systems for Navy warships.
He and his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, 62, then copied the information to CDs and delivered them to Tai Wang Mak, 56, who was scheduled to fly to Hong Kong on Oct. 28 with his wife, Fuk Heung Li, an FBI affidavit said.
From there, the brother allegedly planned to travel to Guangzhou, China, to meet a contact.
- They flood our university engineering programs, dominating our graduate programs. High supply of talented persons drives down their value. Grad students are therefore paid 3rd World slave wages and treated like crap. A Chinese grad student will work for less, harder, than an American. Don't tell me that is good - that is the same argument used to justify slavery. A smart American will say, "Screw that - I can get paid better doing something else." Don't cry poverty when universities invest millions in ethnic studies programs that produce negative product.
- By holding so many graduate positions, Chinese and other foreign nationals dominate teaching many entry level math and science courses. Many undergrads, after 2-3 classes where "I can't understand a word the Professor is saying..." leave for other fields.
- University programs force many engineering students to take 18-19 hrs their first few semesters and rarely less than 16 hrs in order to spit them out in 4 years. Many talented students faced with this move elsewhere where they can take a more balanced load and get a better GPA because their CAL101, CHEM101, and PHY101 "teachers" cannot speak the English language well, they can't ask questions in a class full of 100 students, and they will never get into the right grad school with the grades they are getting at 18hrs while trying to be an American at the same time. They go to Business school instead.
All the above is from my personal experience, and the honor I had to by chance have season football tickets next to native born American doctoral candidates in engineering. Good folks, and they were concerned with all the above. Smart folks who gave up good offers to stay and get their PhD in engineering because they wanted to teach at the college level.
Who do you blame? Blame university policy that has blinders on a desire for a stable of serfs for graduate students, and a national policy that is not focused on national security by promoting our brightest. Sure, we gain plenty of stuff from foreign graduate students, but at what cost? What percentage should they be of our engineering programs? How much should we pay and/or support the study of certain fields by American citizens?
