The US government keeps track of countries with material industrial espionage programs like this in America. It isn’t just China on that list, some western allies do the same thing albeit rarely if ever on the same scale as China is currently.
It isn’t a secret. Most people are just oblivious to the scope and nature of the threat.
Japan did the same thing before and after the world wars.
This is not really that new or strange. India has been doing the same thing.
Russia as well.
it's standard practice to send people to more advanced countries to train and then have them come back and start companies based on what they have learned. this is why Patents only really work in local regions or within a Nation.
the biggest difference is that China has been so much more blatant and in your face with it, especially in the military technology sectors.
Now the biggest issue is to get those that train to come back. A lot of Russians chose not to, same with Indians, and Japanese. China has an extensive espionage network focused on keeping track of exchange students and make sure that they fall in line. Much more so than any other nation.
have a friend from Malaysia and they had this smart idea that if you study abroad and get a PhD or Masters (as I understood it) your entire student loan would be forgiven. Again people didn't move back, so the last I hear was that they tried to make it contingent on moving back to Malaysia. My info is abitout of date since it was a pre pandemic conversation I had with him.
Not anymore. It's because of visa and naturalization backlogs.
When I was a kid growing up in the 90s and 2000s, it was common for Chinese nationals to naturalize and become citizens.
When the Chinese backlog reached a decade long 10-20 years ago, a lot of top tier Chinese talent decided to return to China because employment visa hell sucks and the Chinese private sector formalized and grew.
The same thing has started to happen with Indians as well (and happened to Koreans and Taiwanese in the 80s)
A Tsinghua or Jiaotong grad might have an incentive to do graduate school in the US or work here a couple years, but there's no point spending 5-7 years to naturalize when you can return to China and get funded or get tenure.
A similar thing has started happening in India as well at tier 1 IITs and then like.
Note that Chinese emigration rate increased again due to COVID, and more Chinese are staying since then. It will be interesting to see if that sticks or not.
A lot of Chinese just hedge their bets with lives and investments in both countries (including anchor babies).
> A lot of Chinese just hedge their bets with lives and investments in both countries
Yep. Ik. I lived in Richmond for a bit back in the day when it transitioned from HKers to Mainlanders.
> Chinese emigration rate increased again due to COVID, and more Chinese are staying since then. It will be interesting to see if that sticks or not.
Yep. I personally think it's a fumble on our (America's) part.
A lot of top tier Chinese talent will gladly want to become American citizens or naturalize, but a bunch of populist anti-China measures have prevented Chinese STEM talent from naturalizing, so we aren't getting the cream of the crop anymore
> but a bunch of populist anti-China measures have prevented Chinese STEM talent from naturalizing, so we aren't getting the cream of the crop anymore
I thought it was just the green card quotas, since once you get a GC naturalizing only takes a few years. The quotas are dumb, but are not specifically anti-china.
Not GC quotas - the backlog is 2 years now for Chinese nationals
It's EO 10043 [0] that's the blocker.
If you are a Chinese national who is in some way affiliated with tbe Chinese Civil-Military fusion, you cannot get a visa to the US.
This EO is horribly written, as it essentially treats all Chinese universities or programs that get some kind of military funding (even a relatively minor grant) as part of the Civil-Military Fusion, as just about every Chinese STEM program is connected with a State Key Laboratory or the CAS.
I think that only affects Technology institutes that are run by the PLA? Like Beijing Institute of Technology or Harbin institute of technology, but they do not seem to be enforcing it for PKU, Shanghai Jiaotong, or Tsinghua.
The crazy thing is that these are generally lower tier universities in China. What a strange law. I can imagine this making those universities much less popular in future admittances.
They have State Key Laboratories as affiliated with them as well
> only affects Technology institutes that are run by the PLA
Nope. Any kind of tangentially military funded research (aka almost all of STEM) because of how vague "Civil-Military Fusion" is defined (or not defined in this case)
> What a strange law
Executive Order, not a Law.
> making those universities much less popular in future admittances
Maybe, maybe not. There isn't as much of a pull factor anymore especially after the DoJ's Thousand Talents prosecution shitshow.
Trump really fucked up the China-to-US talent pipeline which was a net benefit for us.
> they do not seem to be enforcing it for PKU, Shanghai Jiaotong, or Tsinghua
F-1 and J1/2 applications have fallen dramatically since this EO was passed (though zero COVID and the shutting down of American consulates during that affected this as well)
> The 2022-2023 school year, with 289,526 Chinese students, is the lowest number since the 2013-2014 academic year when 274,439 Chinese students attended U.S. colleges and universities. The highest enrollment number for Chinese students was 372,532 in 2019-2020.
Now that the US is processing Chinese visa applications again (and Zero Covid ended) people are applying again, but ime most Chinese nationals I've seen or interviewed at American programs tend to be those who are Chinese nationals but studied abroad (eg. In the UK or Canada).
I don't really see Tier 1 Chinese STEM graduates at lower tier American programs anymore compared to say 5-10 years ago.
If there was some dataset to parse, I'd love to test my hypothesis that most Chinese F-1 applications are now for Chinese who aren't graduates from Chinese STEM programs.
The tier 1 graduates don't need to go to lower tier American programs anymore. They've already leveled up beyond that. They are going to tier 1 programs abroad, or just going to work at a FAANG or a Chinese-equivalent (when I worked for Microsoft Research in Beijing, we lost a lot of tier 1 undergraduate new graduates to Google in California, and that was 10 years ago)
I guess my question is whether statistically speaking a MS Research Beijing caliber researcher in 2024 (or 2019) would prefer to work abroad in Bellevue or prefer to stay in China.
This is an open question and I'm not sure we'd have the granular level of data needed to test either hypothesis for at least a decade.
All I can use is anecdotal information, but that of course has biases.
I was not aware of that, thanks for sharing!
It does explain why I have seen more indian recruitment in EU from India and China since our backlog or naturalization process is only 5 years of living in the country and then 1-3 years for the bureaucracy to manage the application.
Most Tier 1/2 Indian and Chinese candidates prefer to remain in India+China instead of emigrating to the EU
Top tier employers in both countries can pay Warsaw or Prague level salaries (eg. An IIT Kanpur class of 2024 undergraduate's average starting base salary is US$30,000 in India alone [0]), and you aren't going to be a de facto indentured servant
Generally, Indian+Chinese talent that emigrates to the EU tend to be those whose career growth is limited due to attending non-target schools or lower tier companies.
This excludes graduate students at top tier European institutions (eg. TU Munich, EPFL, etc) who are there explicitly for research, but end up returning to their home countries due to competitive tenure or funding offers.
20 years ago, a Chinese or Indian national attending TU Munich for a PhD would probably stay in Europe, but nowadays they get competitive tenure track offers at IITs or Double First Class Universities.
Blatant is another way of saying successful. Not many countries have system in place to incentivize reverse brain drain, and even in PRC that was hard fought. It's difficult to compete with US tech wages propped up by cheap money. Big reason why PRC can get talent to come back, and with IP is because they pay accordingly and, most importantly, have system in place where that knowledge can be exploited. Another big reason is, and let's be real, East Asians have bamboo ceiling (relative to whites, south asians) in western tech/science. At some point, for some Chinese in western tech, a comfortable salary isn't enough when PRC offers appropriate senority/status and opportunity to build/lead and can compensate/execute accordingly. People aren't happy with good 6 figure salary when they think they deserve 7-8 figure.
People here forget PRC "seaturtles" going back to grow domestic PRC industries is as much a PRC enticement success as US/western retainment failure.
> Not many countries have system in place to incentivize reverse brain drain
Most regional powers do.
The Chinese program is based on Japan's METI, Taiwan's MEA, and Israel's MoE.
These 3 countries devised the primary reverse brain drain programs that countries like China, South Korea, Turkey, India, etc began emulating in the 2000s-2010s.
I suppose more accurate to characterize not all are successful as preventing/reversing brain drain to maintain/grow competitiveness.
PRC emulating 2000s challenges JP/TW recognized is expected. Difference is in execution/available playbook, PRC has growing R&D budget and commercial opportunties to brain drain from likes of JP/TW now, and that's mostly side effect of scale and PRC dumping resources into relevant sectors to compete for top talent. Not as much as US, but enough to entice. It's also failure of others to retain, JP is starting to terminate 10 year academic positions from 2010s designed for job security and they're not being recycled into JP corporate, so they leave for greener pastures abroad, including to PRC. TW... just has tertiary over capacity and not enough domestic opportunities, they also go abroad also including to PRC. SKR... annecdotally it seems like many stay abroad because there's not much opportunities other than being chaebol wage slave. VS last few years, more and more PRC talent/students abroad either see writing on the wall for their future prospects in west due to geopolitics but also know there's _real_ money to be made in PRC strategic sectors. 1000 talent / China Initative crackdown may have accelerated process but it's also increasingly obvious there's a lot of money and prestige to be had, and I think latter undervalued for those who feel stuck due to corporate/geopolitical bamboo ceiling.
TBH PRC also has tertiary overproduction but there isn't capacity to meaningfully brain drain amount of talent PRC is producing abroad. And it looks like some don't even want PRC talent to risk that due to muh IP. Simulatenously, PRC has enough resources/opportunities at top to reverse brain drain some of the few (relative to population) high end talent that went abroad. 0.01% of PRC are overseas, vs 1% of JP vs 3% of TW & SKR. I think that's a a large power strategy, and specifically a large population power strategy, make so much talent that there's always ample talent, and invest more in absolute terms to retain and even drain from others who can't afford to. Regional powers don't get this playbook.
Last years report on brain drain from top 10/100/1000 indian institutions was staggering, but IMO they'll have the same advantages as PRC once domestic opportunities pickup. Israel's pretty successful for various reasons. Turkey I'm not too familiar with other than they're defense industry is growing.
Alternatively, SK and Japanese companies have succeeded in expanding foreign R&D capacity significantly (starting with China in the early 2000s) and there isn't as much a need to remain within JP+SK anymore.
For example, SK and JP expat talent is fairly common in VN, TH, and IN now where they are managing local divisions in those countries.
This largely connects with both Japan and SK's "Flying Geese Paradigm" (雁行形態論) to use Japanese and Korean R&D capacity to build newer markets abroad, and cultivate a secondary tier of R&D capacity.
This was a major reason why Japanese manufacturers heavily invested in electronics R&D in Thailand, Malaysia, China (before 2013), and India along with SK's similar attempts in Vietnam and China (before 2017).
Most of these Koreans and Japanese abroad continue to work for Korean and Japanese companies or (if in the US) on funded scholarships or research from both governments.
> Last years report on brain drain from top 10/100/1000 indian institutions was staggering
Which report?
The only Indian institutions that matter are Institues of National Importance (INI), and very few graduates (usually around 1-5%) from those programs go abroad excluding for graduate study, based on placement statistics since 2017.
During the 2011-17 period there was a structural slowdown in the Indian economy due to an infra lending crisis which was resolved by Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanian, and Krishnamurthy Subramanian's reforms [0]
IME, after the Indian economy stabilized by 2018, most Indians abroad tend to be from non-target institutions, or those who's careers hit a rut as they were unable to be placed at a tier 1 employer (usually a company or government agency that can pay a $10-15k a year starting salary).
> Regional powers don't get this playbook.
Agree to disagree.
The primary difference between China and other countries is that China wouldn't allow significant ownership in R&D FDI within China, thus creating a de facto firewall between domestic talent and R&D capacity abroad.
Most Japanese and Korean companies already tired from that policy and began decoupling in the 2010s, and China was never as closely integrated into the American innovation system as Israel and India (thus leading to the development of local R&D champions).
This is NOT to say China is inferior, but this is to say that there is a level of protectionism in Chinese R&D capacity that isn't as common in other countries (even Russia pre-2022), and increasingly incentivizes Chinese R&D to remain relatively insular.
Most other countries don't have the need to develop hyper-insular R&D capacities as international cooperation remains fairly high.
Most F50 companies will not hire those without citizenship and will be reluctant to hire talent born in China to protect trade secrets. The number of Chinese students at the local BIG!) university by me is a fraction of what it was in 2019. Companies are well aware of the risks now.
Maybe you should look at some compsci papers coming out of US universities, and tell us what percentage of those are authored by Indian and Chinese students.
The economics of doing graduate school as an American just don't make sense (outside of those closely affiliated with DoE labs).
For a foreigner (Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Iranian) the incentive of getting a path to naturalization along with degree normalization is enough incentive (as you yourself probably know).
No American employer is going to hire a LUMS or UET graduate directly, and if you don't want to work in the Gulf or in Pakistan, your only option is graduate school, especially because there aren't as many MNCs to sponsor an L1/2
Top tier foreign talent gets brought directly via L1/2 programs (like my parents a couple decades ago) as MNCs will transfer the cream of the crop to HQ.
In cases like Pakistan and increasingly China, where MNCs don't have full ownership or are non-existent, the only path is graduate school.
Same thing used to happen to Israelis and Indians in the 1980s.
I’m domestic (my mother was born in Pak), I did a stint as an instructor so I don’t TA anymore. But even when I did they could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
