I love this idea; it plays strongly into American strengths.
However, I don't know if China would be more successful in convincing it's top talent to stay with their families, and I have no idea how to sell this idea politically to American voters. The stereotype of Chinese culture is that they tend to be more collectivist, and the stereotype of the general population of American voters would most likely rather spend any money on Americans first. For the later problem, it is hard to articulate concisely the roundabout way this ends up causing brain drain, and the eventual benefits to the US citizenry. It is much easier to sell "China did something bad, we will punish them with tariffs" than "Chinese government bad, we will pay top Chinese citizens to defect."
Huh? We've been essentially doing this for the past 30 years. Chinese often go back to China with their US/European education and put it to good use there. It doesn't work as a brain drain when China has such a strong domestic market and there's so much money to be made there. There are also cultural and ideological ties that don't seem to be easily broken.
I wish I had the link ready but this is actually not a brain drain, it’s a brain fill. China has government sponsored programs to actively send Han Chinese abroad but keep them loyal to the ‘motherland’ through local meetups.
They shape the way the public perceives them in foreign countries in ways that sometimes read like a spy novel.
Google “sharp power” for some insights into these tactics.
Create a hostile environment for Chinese students so that they are encouraged to return home.
Then prevent them from coming at all because they may return home.
This completely ignored that the massive majority of Chinese stay in the US, and even more would stay in the US contributing disproportionately more than nearly every other grouping of people.
If it wasn't for the US driving them away, it's hard to see why any Chinese national, especially a well educated one, would ever choose to leave the US for China.
If you're trying to claim that giving Chinese youth student visas to study at elite western universities will create a more liberal, pro-western intelligentsia in China, you are flatly wrong.
The Chinese who come here (to the US) are part of the growing Chinese middle- and upperclass and tend to be the most nationalistic of all. Talk to them next time you get a chance; ask them what they think of democracy and freedom, and they'll likely spout PRC government propaganda about how the "Chinese people need to be controlled." We make them into scientists and engineers without succeeding, and perhaps without even really attempting, to make them democrats. We are potentially creating big problems for ourselves and our western and east Asian allies down the road by equipping China with the skilled professionals it needs to produce the weapons of war to threaten the free world.
As for protectionism, if it really bothers you, perhaps you should complain about China's "luxury tax" (import duty) and government-mandated technology transfers for access to their production and consumer markets. China is easily the most protectionist member of the G20.
For people from Russia or other countries China could be attractive option.
Take-home money can be good, especially with low taxation.
US is not really a competition, it is relatively unfriendly to foreigners, very hard to move there.
But I think China wants to mainly increase talent retention. There are many Chinese who stay in US after finishing their studies there. China wants those educated people back.
If you were running a country, would you want your brightest and best people leaving and never returning?
A large proportion of chinese people have to go back to China after being educated, or china will discourage them from leaving in the first place, since it wouldn't be in the national interest.
The US does similar stuff - through their worldwide taxation scheme, they discourage citizens from earning lots of money abroad. They're pretty much saying "if you're successful, we want you to bring those profits back to America".
Here's a modest proposal, an idea I got from reading Supernova Era by Cixin Liu: we could send the kids to boarding schools in China. They have covid under control and we already outsource a lot of industrial production to China so why not outsource education too. Shipping kids over there and back could help stimulate the airlines and maybe Trump could negotiate a deal to pay for it via subsidized soybeans and other excess agricultural products. The parents would still have an externalized child rearing service and the kids would get a nice cross-cultural experience. There's probably excess real estate in Chinese boomtowns that could house the American students. Then when covid is under control here and Trump and his immigration restrictions are in the past the Chinese can resume sending their kids back here to the US to study.
"But I think China wants to mainly increase talent retention. There are many Chinese who stay in US after finishing their studies there. China wants those educated people back."
They should consider democracy, then. Educated people like that.
I was born in a communist country. It's not surprising to me that smart people want to leave.
Their solution to brain drain from foreign educated students in the 90s was in fact to send even more students to the States.
It’s actually worked very well for them as now they have a huge number coming back after studying abroad. And as our immigration policy becomes more restrictive, China will be getting even more of their best and brightest right back.
Regarding (1), I think it is the opposite. The US benefits from high quality free education paid by the Chinese government when these individuals come to do graduate studies and to work in US companies. In fact the same happens when bright people from all over the world comes to the US: it is known as brain-drain, a process by which the US benefits from highly educated people coming from countries that spent a lot of money to create a public school system.
Hm, at least speaking for my uni (ETH Zurich), lots of grad students from Asia come here for cheap tuition & good PhD salaries, but almost all Chinese grad students I asked want to go back to China afterwards. Ideally we would keep talented people here instead of paying for their education with taxes and have them go back afterwards.
> The Thousand Talents program primarily targets Chinese citizens who were educated in elite programs overseas and who have been successful as entrepreneurs, professionals, and researchers
I mean if anything this feels like confirmation of my original point. You only need to invest significant time and treasure into luring people back if they're leaving.
I mean, if the US wanted to "solve" the issue, it's pretty easy.
Offer anyone who graduates with a STEM degree from a reputable institution US citizenship... and require they if they renounce their Chinese citizenship (which happens automatically per Chinese law, but just to be sure).
China actually has government resources dedicated to this. I met a fellow (I won't go into more detail but he was pretty high up in the food chain) while ago whose job was to go to the US and "encourage" Chinese students to return post-graduation.
China has quite a few programs in place to use their students and expats for power projection. China United Front Work Department [1] tries to place PRC citizens into foreign companies in order to gather intelligence and influence them. Confucius Institutes [2] are widespread throughout American universities and use PRC international students to promote state interests.
The reality that Americans are unwilling to accept is that PRC nationals are agents of the state by default. Even if a PRC national doesn't fall into one of the above programs, they are still incentivized by China's social credit system to act in the state's interests, even while abroad.
I just defined the problem I didn't put forth a solution. But your indignation shows exactly why the problem is so significant.
Having said that I'm not saying it isn't the way to save America either. The problem right now is while Chinese adults are making low wages they're managing to put away enough money to send their kids to University. Which in turn is causing Universities to spring up in China. If those graduates stay in China they'll innovate there and almost inevitably steal some of the high level work done by Americans (such as technology design and engineering). Then we start to lose those jobs and the wealth starts flowing into Asia.
So the question is: Isn't it better for the U.S. to have the Mexican adult pay for his child to go to a U.S. University and innovate here?
To be honest, I'm not especially bothered by this. You could (and many cable news and talk radio hosts have) make the case that this is just plain wrong, but isn't there worse things than having the children of affluent foreigners be American citizens? We're still a "nation of immigrants", I say the richer the better!
I'll admit my analysis of this is only cursory, so feel free to correct my reasoning.
Obviously if these children just take advantage of the system, get a cheap(er) education and return to China, it's a net loss for the USA, but it seems to me that a great many would stay here, presumably as "productive citizens".
However, I don't know if China would be more successful in convincing it's top talent to stay with their families, and I have no idea how to sell this idea politically to American voters. The stereotype of Chinese culture is that they tend to be more collectivist, and the stereotype of the general population of American voters would most likely rather spend any money on Americans first. For the later problem, it is hard to articulate concisely the roundabout way this ends up causing brain drain, and the eventual benefits to the US citizenry. It is much easier to sell "China did something bad, we will punish them with tariffs" than "Chinese government bad, we will pay top Chinese citizens to defect."
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