US needs immigration to fulfill new workforce demands, PRC doesn't. PRC generates more talent than US can bring in via immigration. Hence trend towards large wo

US needs immigration to fulfill new workforce demands, PRC doesn't. PRC generates more talent than US can bring in via immigration. Hence trend towards large workforce gap. US does not produce and brain drain enough talent for her needs. Yes US has one of the more permissive immigration systems in the world, but IT'S NO LONGER ENOUGH relative to PRC indigenous talent pipeline. 3/4 million is small potatoes when you're up against 5M+. US isn't competing against PRC on immigration, it's competing on net workforce improvement. US unlikely to have political space to massively ramp up immigration, maybe can close shortage gap, but increasing by 3-4M to stay at parity with PRC isn't politically happening. >with a straight face You're overinterpretting, I'm not saying US is ceding absolute immigration advantage, I'm saying it's ceding it's advantage of being able to brain drain PRC talent via generating bad domestic enviroment for ethnically Chinese talent that is pushing many to leave. >whole generation of Chinese previous STEM students from top universities are now in upper leadership positions...in the USA Yes, which I acknowledged. But now they're largely staying in PRC for years (precovid) US isn't braindraining PRC best on scale that can degrade PRC indigenous industries anymore. There is a generational difference talent willing to emmigrate. Hence US ceding her all upside advantage of draining/denying PRC access to her best, and now has to redirect to draining more of (likely) India's best. This is arguably triple win for PRC. All of which is to say, yes US immigration is still a US strength, but it's advantage is vastly diminished vs PRC building up indigenous talent pipeline over last few decades. That +2 advantage was insurmountable gap when most of world was at +0, or even -1 (brain drain), but now it's up against PRC's+5. And where US could feasibly degrade PRC +5 into +4, it chose not to, instead pushing that -1 onto India.