Originally Posted by
kb1992
Or less than 1%.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/...ised-to-hit-6t
On March 10, 2021, it was reported that US spending on COVID relief hit 6 Trillion USD. The total should be even more now.
https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/0...united-states/
There are 372,000 Chinese students in the US. It is estimated that their tuition fees and living expenses contributed US$16 billion in 2019.
Even if all these students return to China, the $16 billion spending is about 0.4% of 6 trillion on COVID relief in the US.
Let's put things in perspective.
Exactly, so their numbers are inconsequential, and their economic contributions to our universities are inconsequential in comparison to the money being thrown around, just like the number of PRC citizens in the PRC who care about overseas travel. So if they happen to become a casualty of the tit for tat, so be it.
Originally Posted by
gudugan
The visa reciprocity issue is completely separate than the flight cancellations issue.
Visa reciprocity is probably a more effective tool than cancelling flights. China clearly doesn’t care about anyone (even their own citizens) outside the country.
Cancel the visas of the family members of CCP officials. Then you put pressure on the CCP to change the policy because the members whose sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, etc., are studying in the US would now either be stuck there or they cannot go back home to visit without getting indefinitely banned from the US (which would make them unable to go back to school). It should be pretty easy to revoke the "in & out privileges" of any CCP official family members by revoking their visas. This also means that any CCP officials whose family members were planning to study in the US starting next fall wouldn't be able to start their studies because they'd be unable to enter the US (unless they are already in the US and do not leave).
The zero COVID policy may be popular with the public, and for people who don't travel overseas, the inconveniences are only theoretical. Even people who do have family members traveling overseas or who do so themselves might be willing to put up with quarantine to try to keep COVID out. But once it starts affecting their ability to see their family members
at all and or starts hitting their pocketbooks (i.e. by requiring them to fly directly from the PRC to the US and pay the exorbitant prices of those airfares), that's when it starts to hit home. So the US should start turning those levers and make it as painful as possible for the people who come up with these policies.