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