this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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A Hong Kong college has promised "unconditional offers" for international students at Harvard after the Trump administration revoked the Ivy League's ability to enroll them.

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) said it would help "ensure a smooth transition" for students who may be unable to enroll for the next school year.

The White House's attempt to prevent Harvard enrolling international students next year is the latest blow in its fight with America's oldest—and richest—university, which refused to comply with government's demands to change how it hires and teaches. The U.S. government is cracking down on elite colleges it alleges are overrun by left-wing extremists and antisemitic movements.

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[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 75 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If China decided to unilaterally implement democratic reforms, they'll slingshot past the United States on the human rights front.

They wouldn't have to be quick about it either, given how quickly Trump is trying to wipe out democracy.

It would be a surreal thing, but suddenly something that's actually plausible.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 32 points 1 week ago (4 children)

If China starts accepting queer people then it's going on my list of potential asylum states.

[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 45 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Personal freedoms realy isn't what China is known for, but holy hell could they dump the world order by doing what the United States wants to fail at.

[–] Wazowski@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

the like 6 desiccated cunts who run that dystopian shithole aren't exactly interested in pleasing others.

[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Unfortunately.

But if they had their shit together, it would be transformative.

[–] Wazowski@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago

Yeah. Well, if we had our shit together, we could cooperate with the rest of humanity and make some progress.

[–] InverseParallax@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Lived there. No it wouldn't.

What were tasting in the US now? Still absolute heaven compared to China.

You should consider Taiwan instead, if you have a career they want.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 10 points 1 week ago

I don't really think China is getting anywhere near the top of the list even if they did reform enough to qualify for it.

And Taiwan is mostly out because it's a focal point of geopolitical tension that's probably going to go the same way as Hong Kong.

[–] Joncash2@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Uh, you can have a civil union in China if your gay. They also have tons of what they call boy love movies. Additionally, there's gay bars in every major city in China. In fact, Chengdu is known as the gay capital of China.

The issues are they do have are, you can't show kissing in those movies and they don't allow parades anymore. Also, no legal protections for discrimination, though all discrimination laws apply. So while you can't say they fired you because your gay, you still have protections that they can't randomly fire you without cause and being gay isn't a cause.

Here's an article about what I am talking about.

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/3114633/lgbtq-people-china-picture-mixed-global-report-finds

Not terrible, also, not great. That kind of described China as a whole though so take that how you will.

Edit

Here's a list of boy love films if your interested.

https://trakt.tv/users/133dle/lists/rainbow-cn-china-boys-love-bl-gay?sort=released%2Casc

Surprisingly they're more popular with women as opposed to men. Not entirely sure why.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Well, my boyfriends would probably be glad to hear it, but I'm trans in addittion to the gayness and the polyamory XD

[–] Joncash2@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So good news on that, that's changing too. The courts find gender conversion therapy illegal, although there's no specific law against it. You can get gender affirming surgery as well as hormone therapy, though not all options. However, they do have a parental consent requirement. Though if you understand Chinese culture, that makes a lot more sense than if you do not. Like I said, with everything in China, not terrible, not great.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I wonder what the parental requirement means effectively if your parents do not live in China lol

[–] Joncash2@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Parent in this case means relative. It's an Asian societal thing, nothing can happen without an agreement with the family as the family unit is more important than the individual. This is actually a thing in Japan as well.

So, you might be thinking couldn't I just fake it. And the answer is yes and happens all the time. Here's a Times article on it. It's some what biased since it's an American paper, but it has the issues fairly correct. The problem is calling it the black market isn't exactly correct. It's usually forged documents pretending that you have family consent.

https://time.com/6261675/china-transgender-hormones-black-market/

Of course, if you actually are alone and have no family, then you don't need approval. However, that doesn't really happen in China as they find your relatives for you, it's actually what the police stations around the world are actually about. It's a way for overseas Chinese to find familial contacts so they can proceed with whatever documentation they want.

Edit

Actually, hilariously if you get into a civil union with your boyfriend, they can act as consent for your trans gender therapy. So in that situation if you've already found a partner it's totally fine and everyone gets whatever they want. This is actually part of a way China promotes marriages in order to try to get that birth rate up. It just happens they don't have laws for gay people so it just default applies.

Edit 2

If you're now also thinking couldn't they just get the grandparents to do it? The answer is also yes. In fact, like 50% of Chinese dramas are about literally this. The grandparents going over the parent's head and making decisions for their grandchildren. It's quite a big deal in China. And I'm not talking about LGBTQ+, it's literally every part of life. China isn't so much a nation of individuals as it's a nation of families and the families make all the decisions. It even leaks up to the political level. It's confusing, but it all makes more sense if you study Chinese culture. This is what guanxi is about. It's not exactly nepotism.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh interesting, I didn’t know about this at all. It seems a bit related to the whole “children aren’t solely raised by their parents, but the entire community” idea.

From a quick look at the wikipedia page, guanxi sounds like a very different model of interpersonal relationships than what we have here. It seems like there’s also a lot more overlap between “business” and personal/private relationships.

What this makes me wonder is how does this whole thing affect familial abuse, which is primarily about control, this seems like it would make it a lot harder to get away from abusive family members.

[–] Joncash2@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Whooo boy that's a tough topic. So I'm sure what you're realizing is that LGBTQ+ issues in China isn't a government thing. The government doesn't care. The families though, oh god, I mean if we're going to say there's oppression in China, it's from the families. IF you're lucky and have a good family, great. If you're not, no one will help you.

So, of course your best bet is to find extended family that accepts you. This is how there's a thriving LGBTQ+ community in China. And leads to all the things I was talking about where grandparents over rule parents, but it can also be aunts or other family members. OR and importantly OR because of how guanxi works, you can also find groups of like minded friends who take you in and help you get past these things.

I'm not here to tell you it's a great system or it works well. Abuse IS a huge problem there. However, in the western mind it's all tied to an oppressive government, it's actually not. It's a deep cultural issue that is only recently coming to light, and frankly if I'm honest it will get buried just as quickly with a few more rights for people, such as gay civil unions. It's how China listens to the voice of the people. I know this is confusing, in the west people think of the voice of the people as a direct voice such as democracy. In China it's complicated. In a weird way, everyone in China is free to do whatever they want, as long as you have the guanxi to back it.

Edit

I feel like I should add this has been the way the Chinese government has done things since imperial times. China isn't communist, a better way of looking at them is they've returned to imperial China. It's bad in many ways as you've noticed, parental abuse is an insanely huge problem there. On the other hand, it's how they handle the rich getting too rich. It doesn't matter how rich you are if you've destroyed all your guanxi, as Elon Musk is discovering.

[–] pycorax@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

BL has always been targeted towards women, it's not exactly an indicator for queer support.

[–] Joncash2@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It is isn't it? I actually talked about that further in the thread. What's up with that? I'm actually curious about it since well I'm not LGBTQ+ but I'm always interested in understanding more. It's strange to me that women would prefer lesbian porn films as well as queer films. It doesn't make sense to me, but statistically that's what we find. I'd love for someone to explain this to me.

Edit: Also yes, I can agree it doesn't show queer support, but it does show ambivalence. After all, it's the government censors that are letting it through, and they aren't LGBTQ+. So, they absolutely do not understand it's targeted at women.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 week ago

They’re getting there, I think. Chengdu is already looking pretty good when it comes to that.

[–] rhvg@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Zero possibility.

The just need to open their system a little bit to let STEM people migrate in and have some academic freedom and economic success, the rest are just too far stretch. the ruling class and middle class has had very little interests to change the political order, now even less so.

[–] MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Near zero.

Status quo is fine enough, but they would fucking crush it if they made the decision.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 8 points 1 week ago

Do Hong Kong universities have mandatory units in Marxism/Xi Jinping Thought as they do on the mainland?

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

china does need innotative scientists to help develop thier own research and tech, since mos tof its obtained through espionage and just reverse engineering to a weaker version of the original tech.

[–] Diva@lemmy.ml -5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

China would be my first choice outside of Europe if I ended up having to leave the US as-is, wouldn't take much for that to end up the first choice full stop.

[–] jumjummy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Have you actually been to China, and are you Han Chinese? If you answer no to either of those questions, China would be a terrible move. Xenophobia turned up to 11.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Dunno about Xenophobia, but most people I've talked to who studied in China seemed to have enjoyed it. Even met someone who lived there for almost a decade and only moved when he felt like changing jobs for something more relaxed.

tbf though, they came from south asia (green & white), so seeing actual quality infrastructure and not a metric ton of corruption everywhere was probably a breath of fresh air.

[–] Diva@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 week ago

Xenophobia turned up to 11.

I'm kind of used to being immersed in xenophobia after living in America for so long. This is also the reason I'm not seeing Europe as a particularly great destination either, the options aren't great right now tbh.