MIT artificial-intelligence researcher sought in connection with murder of Yale grad student in New Haven

I took it as referring to something more proximate.

The Jan. 14 arrest of MIT professor Gang Chen — on charges that he concealed his ties to China — has cut deep on his home campus.

More than 200 faculty colleagues have signed an open letter in support of Chen, saying that the charges are out of proportion with the offense and will do harm to science and the open university.

http://www.wbur.org/edify/2021/01/29/mit-faculty-letter-gang-chen-china

There seems to be a contingent here at UHub that are very concerned every time any local Chinese scientist is accused of wrong doing. This then inevitably opens the door to changing the subject to China-Covid conspiracy theories or human rights atrocities committed by the government of China against the Uighur Muslim minority. It ends up being an opportunistic mix of concern trolling (veiled behind some legit points) and gratuitous anti-Chinese racism and bigotry.

By comparing Gang Chen, who *may* have committed fraud to increase grant awards, to accused murderer Quinxuan Pan the obvious inference from the poster is that “Chinese scientists from MIT are bad news”, but when confronted the commenter will credulous play the “oh, I was just commenting on how MIT protects criminals”, as if tax fraud and murder are some how equivalent.

Given the rise in anti-Asian racism since COVID arrived and the whole MAGA/QAnon obsession with anti-“CCP” (Chinese Communist Party) rhetoric and conspiracies on how the CCP has become so influential in our business and government, fair discussions on potential wrongdoings of local Chinese scientists become an easy way to slip in unquestioned or “plausibly” denied racist jabs and propaganda.

Or an explanation of why you raise the question.

Simply a deflection.