self fulfilling prophesies

that open border problem

One of our august readers asked me today about reports of Chinese citizens, as many as 16,000 of them since October 2023, trying to cross the Mexico-U.S. border. The particular report he cited (and I have been hearing similar ones for a couple of weeks) lists the economic downturn in China as a primary cause. In particular, the report accurately reminds all that China’s youth are finding employment challenging with unemployment at 21.3% for those between 16 and 24 years old.

(Coincidentally, the men of that age from the interior have long been called ‘the floating population’ as they go between cities seeking jobs but without roots due to the domestic laws on benefits an registration. I will mention the CCP began worrying about that ‘floating population’ perhaps 30 years ago during the urbanisation accompanying economic expansion as a potential source of domestic unrest since the lack of a family connection to any particular locale means the Party does not feel as confident in deterring an individual’s unreputable behaviour. The Party loves control but the floating population undermines the ability to use family members as levers to achieve the ‘respect’ for rules it desires since the floaters families are harder to find.)

But, no, that Yahoonews explanation does not sound plausible to me because it focuses on many Chinese starting their northerly trek in Colombia, struggling through the depths of the the Dairen Strait into Central America, then making their way to a border crossing.

Why would Chinese be going to Colombia rather than going straight to Mexico? More importantly, the unemployment rate for those particular groups strike me as so severe as to preclude them accumulating travel funds (and even if you are illegally migrating, it requires some money of some sort to get from China to Colombia or anywhere else). Additionally, the article cites the downturn in ‘tech, real estate, and education’, caused by PRC government actions, as the basis for this unemployment.

Harsher U.S. scrutiny on security work permits was the final reason offered for the substantial increase in illegal. Yes, we do have a system that makes workers procure permits, even if the domestic political rhetoric implies the current administration just opens the door to people. Yes, the inability to satisfy counsular folks of your intentions being honourable about coming to the country, much less securing that work visa, causes you to take other actions to get into the United States.

But, no, the causes and effects discussed in the piece don’t make a lot of sense to me because Xi has preached against a ‘brain drain’ for at least the past 7 years. It’s not as if one is completely free to depart China because one wants to go to the United States. PRC internal laws on movement are definitely looser than they were under Mao but the subtle and not-so-subtle monitoring of activities and associated pressures on your family resident in the PRC can greatly constrain any individual’s actions.

Yes, it strikes me that China is likely using this a mechanism to infiltrate American soil. Yes, China is obsessed with knowing more about what we do and putting people on the ground in whatever way possible is helpful for that. My husband always reminds me, however, that our openness as a society means we put so much about ourselves online so perhaps the need to be here isn’t as important as it might seem.

Make no mistake: China is obsessed with us and the actions they see as trying to contain the PRC much as we did with the Soviets between 1946 and 1991. China likely facilitates many of these illegal crossings.

Why would we be at all surprised about that since we harp all the time about our permeable borders? If one were Mork from Ork, one would kow that our borders don’t seem to deter anyone from illegally corssing. Isn’t that the message we repeat all fo the time?

Seriously, don’t we see that we aren’t helping ourselves by portraying the ICE system as fatally broken? It is weak, illegals are crossing, more people seem drawn to try to cross over, etc. etc. etc. but the system is not utterly and completely non-functional yet that is the messaging we are presenting.

Actions create consequences.

If we are as worried about provocative Chinese activity, along with malign Russia, Venezuelan, Cuban, North Korean, Islamic extremist, and Iranian moves,