Commentary According to Joe Augustyn, a decorated veteran of the CIA, when graduate students from China come to the United States, officials in Beijing brief them before they depart, and brief them “when they come back.” This makes the U.S. Embassy and Consulates recent decision to reject the visa applications of 500 STEM students, all of whom were graduate students, a wise one. After all, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) appetite for intellectual property theft and acts of espionage, which are really two sides of the same coin, is insatiable. The infiltration of key American institutions has been, and continues to be, a major goal of the CCP. Targeting the epicenters of scientific advancements makes complete sense, as the wars of tomorrow will be won in cyberspace, not on remote battlefields. The CCP knows this better than most, hence the desire to send so many STEM students to the United States, the world leader in science. But what about American students? Are they interested in …