- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/50140675
A Princeton nuclear physicist. A mechanical engineer who helped NASA explore manufacturing in space. A US National Institutes of Health neurobiologist. Celebrated mathematicians. And over half a dozen AI experts. The list of research talent leaving the US to work in China is glittering – and growing.
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A report citing Chinese state-controlled media:
Chinese professionals eye Europe as US visa uncertainty grows
According to the South China Morning Post, recent uncertainty over the U.S. H-1B visa program has led many Chinese professionals to consider leaving the United States for Europe. Confusion followed a U.S. government proposal to introduce a US$100,000 application fee for H-1B visas. Although later clarified to apply only to new visas, the announcement triggered panic among skilled workers and their families.
I think of it slightly differently; the US used to attract bright minds because it was a bastion of free speech where people could make a name for themselves on the merits of their ideas and the popularity of their personalities.
China, by comparison, has always had a case of sinosuperiority coupled with NIH syndrome. However, China also values intelligence and hard work, funds the sciences well, and above all, is stable.
So, people who are suddenly finding themselves personally non grata in the US because of their viewws, real or perceived, see China willing to offer them more money and better status and equipment in the short term to study in the manner to which they are accustomed.
Everyone knows that in the long term, China will keep the knowledge and eject the foreigners, but that doesn’t matter right now.
So it’s not really a case of China overtaking the US, but the US deciding that it doesn’t care about its lead, and veering off the racetrack to experiment with hitting itself with a rock.
I’m not even sure it’s about the scentists’ views, in the first place, for some scientists. It’s more about unpredictable, politically targeted defunding, and the ignorance of the decision makers. The Trump regime has an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to science itself, and t will defund research into Earth and climate science, medical science, space science, and anything it deems either inconvenient or not immediately profitable, or that falls foul of some irrational conspiracy theory. And these decisions are made by the most ignorant people with no clue about how science can benefit a country. If China isn’t so insane and whimsical about how it decides funding in your field, it will appeal to some scientists even if they can’t speak their minds politically there. But that will vary from field to field because China does have its own restrictions on scientific research.
To be frank, if a person immigrates to China then they’re not the world’s smartest minds.
