This (and many of the other comments) from presumably knowledgeable tech people give me pause. Google and Facebook fly entire planeloads of tech people to and from China (PRC) every weekday. Friends of mine fly there without a qualm in order to source parts. And yet, there is no more totalitarian government in the world, nor one who kills more of its citizens every year, nor one who intercepts more WIFI and cell messages/texts/emails. But people find the US difficult? Won't fly there? Yes, some of the security staff are IQ < 95. Many of them feel they'll make their boss less angry by overdoing rather than under-doing it. Now, if they could just move the airport guys over to the cargo terminal to catch the drug shipments, they'd make a bit more sense to me. I would also point out this peculiarity, that US government agencies and contractors have hired (and arranged visas for) PRC physicists and programmers. This confusion has apparently been going on for several decades.