JeremyReesnz

This is the most important issue no one is talking about with the Nvidia scandal: what is a Chinese spy? The traditional definition of a spy is "a person who secretly gathers and reports confidential, sensitive, or classified information for a government, organization, or competitor." Alice Huang allegedly reporting back to the Chinese government sensitive information on Nvidia fits that definition. However, this definition is broad enough -- and the Chinese government is broad enough -- to probably implicate thousands of Chinese working for American firms, meaning that the US either needs to redefine spying or have a major crackdown on Chinese espionage. Let me cite some concrete areas that are difficult but crucial to discuss. --Party cells in American companies. Chinese law requires any company with three or more Chinese Communist Party members to have Party cells. These promote CCP values, but they also act as conduits of "sensitive" information from a company into the Party. Are they spies? -Collaboration with Chinese universities. Chinese universities in China are effectively state-owned, and individuals working at Chinese universities are effectively Chinese government officials. Is someone sharing "sensitive" information with a Chinese university a spy? --Or consider an even more difficult edge case: two Chinese students at an American university. The first Chinese student says something positive about American democracy. The second tell his father -- who, like more than 100 million other Chinese, is a Party member -- what the first student said. Is he spying? My point in bringing this up is not to stereotype Chinese working at American companies but rather to point out a pretty major compliance challenge with espionage and China, and to spark a conversation on how we discuss it in the United States.