Sounds like a turn of the millennium TV Series where a select group of humans with superpowers appears on earth but society doesn't understand their genius and wants to control them. There were a few good ones in the early 2000's - now Netflix (= loungeroom reality) is mostly that kind.

So it was a nice move back in 2008 when the CCP launched it's Thousand Talents Plan - tapped into the zeitgeist beautifully. It involves scholarships for Chinese and foreigner scientists.

Technically there are four thousand, with a junior program as well.

Apart from the money, which was upwards of a million a year for Harvard Professor Charles Leiber, there's the Harry Potter thrill of being in a select club of clever people who know best.

For the money, flattery and prestige, the professors just need to share research secrets and kiss China's arse in public every chance they get.

Successive US governments look set on hounding Snowden and Assange to their graves for performing public service whistle-blower duties, but how about these Thousand Talents dudes?

I don't know what the definition of treason is but some of these scientists must be skating perilously close.

It's amazing what China is pulling off, and it's all straightforward and simple. It's all carrot and stick. And one thing they're good at is putting it all out in the open and celebrating it, which allows people to feel not just ok, but downright good about playing along. Granted, every country is the same to some degree, but the difference is that in countries with more personal freedoms, people can say fuck that shit and not get disappeared or locked out of the ability to travel or get a good job.

It's all very Orwellian. The Social System, surveillance thing they have going on, the disappearance of anybody who raises a stink, the seduction of those who can help them increase their reach, it's all very well designed.

And you're right, the west does nothing, in my opinion because they've been hypnotized as well, or partaking in the carrot.

Meanwhile, poor, dysfunctional Russia just poisons anybody who pisses the leader off then denies the act.