11 ms·

Scientists of Chinese descent leaving the US at an accelerating pace

97 points by herbertl 3y ago

_8j50 3y ago
"Perceived espionage" , there are plenty of convictions and proof of CCP using university "confucious centers" to recruit assets and entire police departments in US,Canada and EU to control chinese people who migrated to the US for these reasons. This reads like a highly biased hit piece. I don't think the US is better off with foreign nationals that seek education in the US but have no desire to get permanent residency. Especially at public uni's and NSF funded programmes at private colleges.
- deleted 3y ago
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- daveed 3y ago
  > I don't think the US is better off with foreign nationals that seek education in the US but have no desire to get permanent residency I don't think this comment draws the distinction between people who came here without long-term plans, and people who came here and left because they felt they would not be welcome long-term.
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - _8j50 3y ago
    I have no problem with people that do not feel welcome and leave. I have a problem with those whose plan was to get US education and go back home. I believe much of the people that are going back for whatever reason never planned to stay. The article as well makes no attempt to prove that isn't the case. That's why I said it reads like propaganda, that and the "perceived espionage" phrase usage.
    - macintux 3y ago
      > I have a problem with those whose plan was to get US education and go back home. Why? If I (an American) studied in the UK, did I somehow betray the British by returning to the U.S. after? I paid tuition, I contributed to the economy while there, I helped bridge cultural gaps.
      - _8j50 3y ago
        I specifically pointed out public unis and NSF grants because they are tax payer funded investments. College isn't free in the US, foreigners would attend their own colleges but whatever benefit a US college created, if it is taxpayer funded should prioritize those who will stay to benefit the public. Your example is also peculiar because of the relationship between the US and UK, any advantages you gained in the UK might help the US instead of the UK but it will not harm the UK's security or industry because of friendly relations, legal cooperations and extradition treaties. China and countries not friendly to the US training people in the US who will go back and develop industry and technological advantage all on US taxpayer's dime isn't the same thing. Even when you pay tuition, a public uni or a gov sponsored grant is subsidizing much of the cost you would otherwise been expected to pay.
    - daveed 3y ago
      > I believe much of the people that are going back for whatever reason never planned to stay But why do you believe that? You're asking for the article to prove that isn't the case, and I'm asking in all earnestness, what is the argument that it would be the case?
      - _8j50 3y ago
        Because I know first hand plenty of immigrants that come to the US simply to get an education and go back. Nothing wrog with that, and it seems unreasonable to say all Chinese people who come to the US to attend school intended to stay in the US long term. I mean, student visas don't even allow most of them to stay if they wanted to, you can look up student visa stats for China to find proof for my point.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  > I don't think the US is better off with foreign nationals that seek education in the US... I know a guy whose wife was once a bank teller, near a major (public) US research university. By his telling, arriving Chinese (mainland) college students typically opened their bank accounts with mid-6-figure deposits. Perhaps you should talk to someone in the tourism or hospitality industry, about your great new idea of turning away pay-top-dollar customers en mass? (And maybe also talk to an average research staffer doing NSF-funded research, about just how wretched the pay, hours, and job security are. Sunk Cost fallacies and social status aside, many of those folks would really be better off mowing lawns and flipping burgers.)
  - blululu 3y ago
    This isn’t tourism, this is education. It is about training for skills that are presumably valuable for the country to have. Since there are also a limited number of spots and the tax payers foot the bill we should be more concerned that the people who get the spots are going to be in it for the long haul. Mercenaries have always been a questionable investment. Of course the NSF should pay more, but saying “people don’t want these jobs” is more of a cheapskate slogan to justify exploitation.
    - Retric 3y ago
      These spots aren’t generally subsidized for foreign students. Higher education in the US has many types of price discrimination and subsidies so it’s a complex topic but foreign students will generally be charged a premium. Also rather than a fixed number of slots most schools grow and shrink based on demand. That’s why so many more people can get educated vs 40 or even 20 years ago. There’s generally a huge surplus of people willing to teach outside of a few niche areas.
    - bell-cot 3y ago
      The "number of slots" at a university is limited in the exact same way as the number of tables at a fancy restaurant and the number of rooms at a nice hotel. The "limited" is a business model / marketing ploy - to maintain the air of exclusivity, and maximize revenue. And for your "taxpayers foot the bill"? I live near the University of Michigan. Total "public university" state funding, per student, is maybe $7,000 per year. Vs. out-of-state undergraduate students are charged a ~$40,000 per year premium, over in-state tuition rates. (BTW, U of M total enrollment has increased ~50% in the past 30 years. Building more classrooms and hiring more staff is easy stuff, from a U-M Executive Suite PoV.) My NSF point was not that NSF should pay more. It was that your "foreign nationals...NSF funded programs" argument is not logical. If we're paying crap wages to "best and brightest" foreign nationals, while American drop-outs do better flipping burgers...that sure doesn't sound like "them" taking advantage of "us". Quite the opposite.
- chaostheory 3y ago
  The problem is that these policies affect people even when they’re from allied countries which is ridiculous in light of the new tech war
- Retric 3y ago
  The world including U.S. citizens are better off with a well educated population. Research funded by foreign powers can still improve people’s lives with the added benefit that we don’t have to pay for it. Currently China has a terrible reputation when it comes to science, but there are also useful discoveries taking place. That’s not to say there are zero downsides, but the vast majority of information these people are receiving is already freely available. US universities are world class, but there’s already some quite competitive schools in many other countries including China.
  - _8j50 3y ago
    The problem everyone in this thread is missing is that by fueling Chinese education at US tax payer cost, their educational institutions and research programs already rival the US. Competition is fine but paying your competitor to win is silly.
    - Retric 3y ago
      The premium paid by many foreign students is well above what the average American is paying. Price discrimination by US schools is designed to maximize what they can extract and they are very skilled at it. It’s a complicated topic with plenty of ambiguity, but on net the US is economically better off with these students. You can argue about past funding for these institutions, but at worst the net subsidy is minuscule compared to what foreign investors of US companies are receiving. You could point to research grants for graduate students, but these people are doing actual work at below market rates. It’s comparable to H1B’s except they are paid less and more of that money is funneled back into the US economy.
xqcgrek2 3y ago
I'm not sure they should have been let into graduate schools the first place. Unlikely Asians of Indian or Taiwanese origin, mainland China origin scientists and students with graduate degrees have not contributed to the US economy commensurate (in terms of startups and R&D talent) with tax payers funding of their education.
- inconceivable 3y ago
  i heard they cost the US taxpayer literally twice as much, possibly 3x as much as a taiwanese graduate student. it's incredible, sometimes they cost as much as a million dollars per year which gets funneled straight to the CCP.
  - onlypositive 3y ago
    You guys subsidize foreigners? Uni here costs literally 10-20x (depending on year) what it costs for locals.
    - lukas099 3y ago
      It is much more expensive for foreign students in the US, too.
      - thfuran 3y ago
        And they're generally not eligible for federal student loans.
    - deleted 3y ago
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    - dotnet00 3y ago
      Uni for international students in the US is extremely expensive unless you're pursuing a PhD, in which case you're usually fully covered by your PI. Although I don't really see how that's costing the taxpayer much unless that number is somehow accounting for the lost value of what someone who stays in the US after finishing their PhD would contribute to the economy. Universities take most of the money from the student's funding source such that the student is only left enough to take care of their basic necessities, so it definitely isn't costing much in terms of stipends,
Simulacra 3y ago
Could the government be pressuring them to return home?
- zahma 3y ago
  I had this same thought, but given the blatant profiling of the China Initiative for four years —- to say nothing of other social prejudices, it might not have taken so much pressure but rather a gentle nudge to consider one’s environment. I don’t doubt there’s been some interference by the Chinese government. I’m just not sure they could run a full-on scare tactics campaign without it blowing up.
- HarryHirsch 3y ago
  Do talk to your foreign colleagues about the immigration bureaucracy one of these days, it's frankly inhumane. China is simply offering better conditions, no need to apply the whip when you can hand out carrots.
  - BeetleB 3y ago
    It's not that hard to get immigration if you're a faculty member - especially in STEM. Everyone I know - including Chinese - got it fairly easily. Many even during their postdoc years. I believe there is a separate queue if you're getting it via academia and there's no special backlog there for Chinese.
    - HarryHirsch 3y ago
      Do consult the Visa Bulletin: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2023/visa-bulletin-for-august-2023.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v... The waiting time for E2 preference for Chinese nationals is 4 years (priority date 9 July 2019, for Indian nationals it's 12 years (priority date 1 Jan 2011). That's what most academics would fall under (I certainly did). Those who fall under E1 preference will get their Green Card a little faster. US immigration is a fraught topic. People with no or second-hand experience of the immigration system will manage to upset those who had to navigate it even with the best of intents. They would do well to keep silence.
rhaway84773 3y ago
Considering the way the US was mistreating researchers of Chinese descent, charging them criminally for forgetting to list an offhand meeting with a single person of the many they might have met in China, in one of many grant requests they submitted. Punishing the many for the crimes of a handful of people was obviously gonna result in something like this. That being said, it will be interesting to see if this trend has continued. The data here is only till 2021 and since then the US has ended the more blatantly racist persecution, China’s growth story has stalled, and Xi Jinping has gone into full arbitrary authoritarian mode.
makeitdouble 3y ago
> Among the scientists of Chinese descent who left the US in 2010, 48% moved to China, and 52% relocated to other countries. Given the half/half split, this is less about China and more about the US (also discussed in the article, but to clarify as some comments seem to assume the contrary)
- dustingetz 3y ago
  continuing, article claim is that 5 years of US counter-intelligence investigation of chinese nationals has resulted in many unjust dismissed investigations and chinese scientists fear being accused.
  - senttoschool 3y ago
    Very similar to Nazi Germany driving out Jewish scientists. We all know how that ended.
tomohelix 3y ago
China provides many opportunities for its citizens to study abroad and expand their horizons, and the US is happy to take that money and nearly free brain labor. But when the fruits of all that training is ripe to pluck, the scale flips and now it is a fight between those two countries to retain the talents. And the US is losing badly. Maybe China is playing it dirty and forces these scientists to come back. Or maybe it is simply that the US immigration is so hostile they don't see a future here. One of the main reasons people tried to go here is because of a chance of a better life. But when the naturalization process is so grueling and drawn out, they just don't bother anymore. Especially when China in big cities is providing pretty high standards of living to its citizens. Sure, "freedom" and "human rights" are something but frankly, those concerns are not relevant when we are talking about the upper class Han people. Stereotypes of rich Asian international students exist for a reason and that is because many of them come from rich and influential families. To these people, as long as you don't stir things up politically, they will feel safer and enjoy more rights in China than in the US. Lots of US citizens do not understand the pain of immigration. It is in every way a demeaning and torturous process. You get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with. There must be an incentive for these people to endure that kind of process. And for many Chinese whose homeland in every way a direct competitor to the US, there aren't enough reasons.
- injb 3y ago
  >>> It is in every way a demeaning and torturous process. You get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with Did you have a very bad experience with US immigration? I've been dealing with it for a couple of decades, from non immigrant visas to GC and while its definitely a pain in the ass, it hasn't been anything like that^. There's a lot of waiting, and a lot of uncertainty and anxiety but it was never personal for me or anyone I know.
  - eatbitseveryday 3y ago
    I would agree. Immigration experience depends on your situation. Marriage to a citizen has been simple. Same with parents to a citizen.
lucubratory 3y ago
1. The FBI has been ruthlessly persecuting Chinese people with absolutely absurd charges. For example, "In a grant application you didn't list that you had met for coffee with X other student from your alma mater when you visited China for Lunar New Year. This constitutes fraud and possibly espionage." A grant application is not an SSBI application! These are genuinely absurd standards to be applying to people. The fact that the FBI has been overwhelmingly losing these racially motivated cases is cold comfort - having extremely powerful secretive police harassing you and your family is extremely distressing even if their case against you is ultimately unsuccessful, and the fact that they know they're losing and keep doing it suggests their intent is to try and discourage you from talking to any of your friends or family back in China, or leave the country. Careful what you wish for. 2. Declared academic collaboration between academic institutions in the US and China is being cracked down on as well. People and their families are being investigated with no evidence given as to why, the federal government is contacting US universities and convincing them to end collaborative programs, etc. The reasons given, if any, are that the Chinese are stealing American technology through these academic collaborations. Thinking for two seconds about what, exactly, an academic collaboration is intended to accomplish should show how absurd the "stealing" idea is. 3. A lot of the most valuable work in academia is collaborative, and a lot of the specific career value in being a Chinese national or having Chinese family ties in US academia is that you can function as an expert go-between for the two largest and most important countries for scientific research. When the US is not just devaluing but actively stigmatising some of your skills, it can force people to choose. The US is richer per capita, has more freedoms in many respects, etc, but the persecution by police is going to impact your assessment of where you'd rather live, especially when the PRC has open arms, lots of grant money, and scientists have a good position in society there too. 4. Hate crimes against Chinese people have been increasing dramatically for years. Chinese communities know this and also see very clearly that it's not a priority for either political party to do anything about it. Not much to say about this, it's obvious why you wouldn't want to live somewhere where there are enough people in the population committing hate crimes against you that most people are in community with a victim, and then there's no political will to do anything about it. 4. There's genuine concern about the possibility of war. If you know anyone in the American military, you know that war with China is on everyone's mind. Different dates get floated, from 2030 to 2027 to 2025, but it's essentially received wisdom in the US military that there is going to be a war in the westpac theatre at some point. This view ("We should be prepared") is also essentially bipartisan in the political realm, and American media are doing their part too. Chinese people notice, they can see the current (illegal, racist) persecution by the government, and most of them have enough historical knowledge to understand that the dynamics that lead to the Japanese internment camps haven't fundamentally changed - the camps themselves weren't even ruled to be illegal until 2018, only 5 years ago! If you were Chinese, would you want to stay in America and take the risk that you might end up confined to a camp, or wearing an ankle bracelet with a microphone everywhere just so the government can say that they didn't put a particular ethnic minority in literal camps? Genuinely, would you take that risk, with what you know about America? If the American government goes to war with China, and they decided on this sort of large scale persecution of Chinese people, do you think that any significant quantity of Americans with any political power would stand up for the Chinese people in America, or would it be like 9/11 where the government persecuted Muslims en masse and there was zero political will to stop them for years?
objektif 3y ago
No feelings on this either way. In fact it may be better for US to reduce the dependence on people from one nation. I have met a lot of very smart and hard working people from China who definitely deserve where they are. However on the flip side I have also witnessed crazy levels of favoritism (only hiring other Chinese) within their community both in academic and non-academic settings.
bell-cot 3y ago
> The team also conducted a survey in 2021–2022 of nearly 1400 Chinese Americans in tenured or tenure-track positions at US universities that revealed that 35% of them feel unwelcome, and 72% do not feel safe. > Furthermore, 42% are fearful of conducting research in the US, 65% are worried about pursuing collaborations with China and 86% perceive that it is harder to recruit top international students now compared with five years ago. Of the survey respondents who have obtained US federal grants 45% say that they will avoid applying for such awards for fear of making mistakes in the application process that could lead to them being investigated. So...what % of white American scientists would leave a European country in which they did probably not feel safe, perhaps felt unwelcome, etc., etc.?
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  What the US did with NSF grant fraud prosecutions is unconscionable and a terrible unforced error.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  What’s an example of a European country where a white American would feel unsafe? I’m having trouble processing the comparison.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    Trivial answer: Russia But my point was that Chinese-descent scientists in America might be rational human beings, making decision about where to live and work based on their perceptions of the risks, costs & benefits. Not some "tired, poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free" out of a simplistic American Patriotism story.
    - dryrun 3y ago
      "European"?
      - bell-cot 3y ago
known 3y ago
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catboybotnet 3y ago
Anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt: but similar things have been and are happening with scientists from other countries. From the family grapevine, I've heard that other Ukranians, Russians, and others from former Soviet states at places like Fermilab with impressive degrees are leaving the country after 25+ years. Some of them have left because they could never really get a foothold in the country, and others because they feel they are just tired of it after so long. Compared to how things were after the collapse of the Union, it has improved, it's more tempting to go back now than to stay. QoL has never been as good as it is now, unless of course you're a military aged male)) Nobody feels the dream anymore.
trimethylpurine 3y ago
A clearly biased view that ignores the unusually high number of Chinese exchange students and researchers that were caught performing military surveillance. One could just as easily blame China for creating a hostile environment rather than US immigration policy, which is among the most lenient of any country. Let's not ignore the fact that the US takes in more legal immigrants per capita than any other country. And that's aside from illegal immigrants, which are estimated to also number more per capita than any other country. If the goal is to gain research, appealing to countries other than China, may simply be a safer bet. That is unless the US assumes Chinese immigrants are somehow better than other countries of origin. And if they did, it would be just as discriminatory.

97 points by herbertl 3y ago

"Perceived espionage" , there are plenty of convictions and proof of CCP using university "confucious centers" to recruit assets and entire police departments in US,Canada and EU to control chinese people who migrated to the US for these reasons. This reads like a highly biased hit piece. I don't think the US is better off with foreign nationals that seek education in the US but have no desire to get permanent residency. Especially at public uni's and NSF funded programmes at private colleges.

deleted 3y ago
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daveed 3y ago
> I don't think the US is better off with foreign nationals that seek education in the US but have no desire to get permanent residency I don't think this comment draws the distinction between people who came here without long-term plans, and people who came here and left because they felt they would not be welcome long-term.
- deleted 3y ago
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- _8j50 3y ago
  I have no problem with people that do not feel welcome and leave. I have a problem with those whose plan was to get US education and go back home. I believe much of the people that are going back for whatever reason never planned to stay. The article as well makes no attempt to prove that isn't the case. That's why I said it reads like propaganda, that and the "perceived espionage" phrase usage.
  - macintux 3y ago
    > I have a problem with those whose plan was to get US education and go back home. Why? If I (an American) studied in the UK, did I somehow betray the British by returning to the U.S. after? I paid tuition, I contributed to the economy while there, I helped bridge cultural gaps.
    - _8j50 3y ago
      I specifically pointed out public unis and NSF grants because they are tax payer funded investments. College isn't free in the US, foreigners would attend their own colleges but whatever benefit a US college created, if it is taxpayer funded should prioritize those who will stay to benefit the public. Your example is also peculiar because of the relationship between the US and UK, any advantages you gained in the UK might help the US instead of the UK but it will not harm the UK's security or industry because of friendly relations, legal cooperations and extradition treaties. China and countries not friendly to the US training people in the US who will go back and develop industry and technological advantage all on US taxpayer's dime isn't the same thing. Even when you pay tuition, a public uni or a gov sponsored grant is subsidizing much of the cost you would otherwise been expected to pay.
  - daveed 3y ago
    > I believe much of the people that are going back for whatever reason never planned to stay But why do you believe that? You're asking for the article to prove that isn't the case, and I'm asking in all earnestness, what is the argument that it would be the case?
    - _8j50 3y ago
      Because I know first hand plenty of immigrants that come to the US simply to get an education and go back. Nothing wrog with that, and it seems unreasonable to say all Chinese people who come to the US to attend school intended to stay in the US long term. I mean, student visas don't even allow most of them to stay if they wanted to, you can look up student visa stats for China to find proof for my point.
bell-cot 3y ago
> I don't think the US is better off with foreign nationals that seek education in the US... I know a guy whose wife was once a bank teller, near a major (public) US research university. By his telling, arriving Chinese (mainland) college students typically opened their bank accounts with mid-6-figure deposits. Perhaps you should talk to someone in the tourism or hospitality industry, about your great new idea of turning away pay-top-dollar customers en mass? (And maybe also talk to an average research staffer doing NSF-funded research, about just how wretched the pay, hours, and job security are. Sunk Cost fallacies and social status aside, many of those folks would really be better off mowing lawns and flipping burgers.)
- blululu 3y ago
  This isn’t tourism, this is education. It is about training for skills that are presumably valuable for the country to have. Since there are also a limited number of spots and the tax payers foot the bill we should be more concerned that the people who get the spots are going to be in it for the long haul. Mercenaries have always been a questionable investment. Of course the NSF should pay more, but saying “people don’t want these jobs” is more of a cheapskate slogan to justify exploitation.
  - Retric 3y ago
    These spots aren’t generally subsidized for foreign students. Higher education in the US has many types of price discrimination and subsidies so it’s a complex topic but foreign students will generally be charged a premium. Also rather than a fixed number of slots most schools grow and shrink based on demand. That’s why so many more people can get educated vs 40 or even 20 years ago. There’s generally a huge surplus of people willing to teach outside of a few niche areas.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    The "number of slots" at a university is limited in the exact same way as the number of tables at a fancy restaurant and the number of rooms at a nice hotel. The "limited" is a business model / marketing ploy - to maintain the air of exclusivity, and maximize revenue. And for your "taxpayers foot the bill"? I live near the University of Michigan. Total "public university" state funding, per student, is maybe $7,000 per year. Vs. out-of-state undergraduate students are charged a ~$40,000 per year premium, over in-state tuition rates. (BTW, U of M total enrollment has increased ~50% in the past 30 years. Building more classrooms and hiring more staff is easy stuff, from a U-M Executive Suite PoV.) My NSF point was not that NSF should pay more. It was that your "foreign nationals...NSF funded programs" argument is not logical. If we're paying crap wages to "best and brightest" foreign nationals, while American drop-outs do better flipping burgers...that sure doesn't sound like "them" taking advantage of "us". Quite the opposite.
chaostheory 3y ago
The problem is that these policies affect people even when they’re from allied countries which is ridiculous in light of the new tech war
Retric 3y ago
The world including U.S. citizens are better off with a well educated population. Research funded by foreign powers can still improve people’s lives with the added benefit that we don’t have to pay for it. Currently China has a terrible reputation when it comes to science, but there are also useful discoveries taking place. That’s not to say there are zero downsides, but the vast majority of information these people are receiving is already freely available. US universities are world class, but there’s already some quite competitive schools in many other countries including China.
- _8j50 3y ago
  The problem everyone in this thread is missing is that by fueling Chinese education at US tax payer cost, their educational institutions and research programs already rival the US. Competition is fine but paying your competitor to win is silly.
  - Retric 3y ago
    The premium paid by many foreign students is well above what the average American is paying. Price discrimination by US schools is designed to maximize what they can extract and they are very skilled at it. It’s a complicated topic with plenty of ambiguity, but on net the US is economically better off with these students. You can argue about past funding for these institutions, but at worst the net subsidy is minuscule compared to what foreign investors of US companies are receiving. You could point to research grants for graduate students, but these people are doing actual work at below market rates. It’s comparable to H1B’s except they are paid less and more of that money is funneled back into the US economy.

xqcgrek2 3y ago

I'm not sure they should have been let into graduate schools the first place. Unlikely Asians of Indian or Taiwanese origin, mainland China origin scientists and students with graduate degrees have not contributed to the US economy commensurate (in terms of startups and R&D talent) with tax payers funding of their education.

inconceivable 3y ago
i heard they cost the US taxpayer literally twice as much, possibly 3x as much as a taiwanese graduate student. it's incredible, sometimes they cost as much as a million dollars per year which gets funneled straight to the CCP.
- onlypositive 3y ago
  You guys subsidize foreigners? Uni here costs literally 10-20x (depending on year) what it costs for locals.
  - lukas099 3y ago
    It is much more expensive for foreign students in the US, too.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      And they're generally not eligible for federal student loans.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    Uni for international students in the US is extremely expensive unless you're pursuing a PhD, in which case you're usually fully covered by your PI. Although I don't really see how that's costing the taxpayer much unless that number is somehow accounting for the lost value of what someone who stays in the US after finishing their PhD would contribute to the economy. Universities take most of the money from the student's funding source such that the student is only left enough to take care of their basic necessities, so it definitely isn't costing much in terms of stipends,

Simulacra 3y ago

Could the government be pressuring them to return home?

zahma 3y ago
I had this same thought, but given the blatant profiling of the China Initiative for four years —- to say nothing of other social prejudices, it might not have taken so much pressure but rather a gentle nudge to consider one’s environment. I don’t doubt there’s been some interference by the Chinese government. I’m just not sure they could run a full-on scare tactics campaign without it blowing up.
HarryHirsch 3y ago
Do talk to your foreign colleagues about the immigration bureaucracy one of these days, it's frankly inhumane. China is simply offering better conditions, no need to apply the whip when you can hand out carrots.
- BeetleB 3y ago
  It's not that hard to get immigration if you're a faculty member - especially in STEM. Everyone I know - including Chinese - got it fairly easily. Many even during their postdoc years. I believe there is a separate queue if you're getting it via academia and there's no special backlog there for Chinese.
  - HarryHirsch 3y ago
    Do consult the Visa Bulletin: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2023/visa-bulletin-for-august-2023.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v... The waiting time for E2 preference for Chinese nationals is 4 years (priority date 9 July 2019, for Indian nationals it's 12 years (priority date 1 Jan 2011). That's what most academics would fall under (I certainly did). Those who fall under E1 preference will get their Green Card a little faster. US immigration is a fraught topic. People with no or second-hand experience of the immigration system will manage to upset those who had to navigate it even with the best of intents. They would do well to keep silence.

rhaway84773 3y ago

Considering the way the US was mistreating researchers of Chinese descent, charging them criminally for forgetting to list an offhand meeting with a single person of the many they might have met in China, in one of many grant requests they submitted. Punishing the many for the crimes of a handful of people was obviously gonna result in something like this. That being said, it will be interesting to see if this trend has continued. The data here is only till 2021 and since then the US has ended the more blatantly racist persecution, China’s growth story has stalled, and Xi Jinping has gone into full arbitrary authoritarian mode.

makeitdouble 3y ago

> Among the scientists of Chinese descent who left the US in 2010, 48% moved to China, and 52% relocated to other countries. Given the half/half split, this is less about China and more about the US (also discussed in the article, but to clarify as some comments seem to assume the contrary)

dustingetz 3y ago
continuing, article claim is that 5 years of US counter-intelligence investigation of chinese nationals has resulted in many unjust dismissed investigations and chinese scientists fear being accused.
- senttoschool 3y ago
  Very similar to Nazi Germany driving out Jewish scientists. We all know how that ended.

tomohelix 3y ago

China provides many opportunities for its citizens to study abroad and expand their horizons, and the US is happy to take that money and nearly free brain labor. But when the fruits of all that training is ripe to pluck, the scale flips and now it is a fight between those two countries to retain the talents. And the US is losing badly. Maybe China is playing it dirty and forces these scientists to come back. Or maybe it is simply that the US immigration is so hostile they don't see a future here. One of the main reasons people tried to go here is because of a chance of a better life. But when the naturalization process is so grueling and drawn out, they just don't bother anymore. Especially when China in big cities is providing pretty high standards of living to its citizens. Sure, "freedom" and "human rights" are something but frankly, those concerns are not relevant when we are talking about the upper class Han people. Stereotypes of rich Asian international students exist for a reason and that is because many of them come from rich and influential families. To these people, as long as you don't stir things up politically, they will feel safer and enjoy more rights in China than in the US. Lots of US citizens do not understand the pain of immigration. It is in every way a demeaning and torturous process. You get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with. There must be an incentive for these people to endure that kind of process. And for many Chinese whose homeland in every way a direct competitor to the US, there aren't enough reasons.

injb 3y ago
>>> It is in every way a demeaning and torturous process. You get treated like second class human beings and are forced to fight and prove you deserve something others were simply born with Did you have a very bad experience with US immigration? I've been dealing with it for a couple of decades, from non immigrant visas to GC and while its definitely a pain in the ass, it hasn't been anything like that^. There's a lot of waiting, and a lot of uncertainty and anxiety but it was never personal for me or anyone I know.
- eatbitseveryday 3y ago
  I would agree. Immigration experience depends on your situation. Marriage to a citizen has been simple. Same with parents to a citizen.

lucubratory 3y ago

1. The FBI has been ruthlessly persecuting Chinese people with absolutely absurd charges. For example, "In a grant application you didn't list that you had met for coffee with X other student from your alma mater when you visited China for Lunar New Year. This constitutes fraud and possibly espionage." A grant application is not an SSBI application! These are genuinely absurd standards to be applying to people. The fact that the FBI has been overwhelmingly losing these racially motivated cases is cold comfort - having extremely powerful secretive police harassing you and your family is extremely distressing even if their case against you is ultimately unsuccessful, and the fact that they know they're losing and keep doing it suggests their intent is to try and discourage you from talking to any of your friends or family back in China, or leave the country. Careful what you wish for. 2. Declared academic collaboration between academic institutions in the US and China is being cracked down on as well. People and their families are being investigated with no evidence given as to why, the federal government is contacting US universities and convincing them to end collaborative programs, etc. The reasons given, if any, are that the Chinese are stealing American technology through these academic collaborations. Thinking for two seconds about what, exactly, an academic collaboration is intended to accomplish should show how absurd the "stealing" idea is. 3. A lot of the most valuable work in academia is collaborative, and a lot of the specific career value in being a Chinese national or having Chinese family ties in US academia is that you can function as an expert go-between for the two largest and most important countries for scientific research. When the US is not just devaluing but actively stigmatising some of your skills, it can force people to choose. The US is richer per capita, has more freedoms in many respects, etc, but the persecution by police is going to impact your assessment of where you'd rather live, especially when the PRC has open arms, lots of grant money, and scientists have a good position in society there too. 4. Hate crimes against Chinese people have been increasing dramatically for years. Chinese communities know this and also see very clearly that it's not a priority for either political party to do anything about it. Not much to say about this, it's obvious why you wouldn't want to live somewhere where there are enough people in the population committing hate crimes against you that most people are in community with a victim, and then there's no political will to do anything about it. 4. There's genuine concern about the possibility of war. If you know anyone in the American military, you know that war with China is on everyone's mind. Different dates get floated, from 2030 to 2027 to 2025, but it's essentially received wisdom in the US military that there is going to be a war in the westpac theatre at some point. This view ("We should be prepared") is also essentially bipartisan in the political realm, and American media are doing their part too. Chinese people notice, they can see the current (illegal, racist) persecution by the government, and most of them have enough historical knowledge to understand that the dynamics that lead to the Japanese internment camps haven't fundamentally changed - the camps themselves weren't even ruled to be illegal until 2018, only 5 years ago! If you were Chinese, would you want to stay in America and take the risk that you might end up confined to a camp, or wearing an ankle bracelet with a microphone everywhere just so the government can say that they didn't put a particular ethnic minority in literal camps? Genuinely, would you take that risk, with what you know about America? If the American government goes to war with China, and they decided on this sort of large scale persecution of Chinese people, do you think that any significant quantity of Americans with any political power would stand up for the Chinese people in America, or would it be like 9/11 where the government persecuted Muslims en masse and there was zero political will to stop them for years?

objektif 3y ago

No feelings on this either way. In fact it may be better for US to reduce the dependence on people from one nation. I have met a lot of very smart and hard working people from China who definitely deserve where they are. However on the flip side I have also witnessed crazy levels of favoritism (only hiring other Chinese) within their community both in academic and non-academic settings.

bell-cot 3y ago

> The team also conducted a survey in 2021–2022 of nearly 1400 Chinese Americans in tenured or tenure-track positions at US universities that revealed that 35% of them feel unwelcome, and 72% do not feel safe. > Furthermore, 42% are fearful of conducting research in the US, 65% are worried about pursuing collaborations with China and 86% perceive that it is harder to recruit top international students now compared with five years ago. Of the survey respondents who have obtained US federal grants 45% say that they will avoid applying for such awards for fear of making mistakes in the application process that could lead to them being investigated. So...what % of white American scientists would leave a European country in which they did probably not feel safe, perhaps felt unwelcome, etc., etc.?

matthewdgreen 3y ago
What the US did with NSF grant fraud prosecutions is unconscionable and a terrible unforced error.
pfannkuchen 3y ago
What’s an example of a European country where a white American would feel unsafe? I’m having trouble processing the comparison.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Trivial answer: Russia But my point was that Chinese-descent scientists in America might be rational human beings, making decision about where to live and work based on their perceptions of the risks, costs & benefits. Not some "tired, poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free" out of a simplistic American Patriotism story.
  - dryrun 3y ago
    "European"?
    - bell-cot 3y ago

known 3y ago

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catboybotnet 3y ago

Anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt: but similar things have been and are happening with scientists from other countries. From the family grapevine, I've heard that other Ukranians, Russians, and others from former Soviet states at places like Fermilab with impressive degrees are leaving the country after 25+ years. Some of them have left because they could never really get a foothold in the country, and others because they feel they are just tired of it after so long. Compared to how things were after the collapse of the Union, it has improved, it's more tempting to go back now than to stay. QoL has never been as good as it is now, unless of course you're a military aged male)) Nobody feels the dream anymore.

trimethylpurine 3y ago

A clearly biased view that ignores the unusually high number of Chinese exchange students and researchers that were caught performing military surveillance. One could just as easily blame China for creating a hostile environment rather than US immigration policy, which is among the most lenient of any country. Let's not ignore the fact that the US takes in more legal immigrants per capita than any other country. And that's aside from illegal immigrants, which are estimated to also number more per capita than any other country. If the goal is to gain research, appealing to countries other than China, may simply be a safer bet. That is unless the US assumes Chinese immigrants are somehow better than other countries of origin. And if they did, it would be just as discriminatory.