Why Trump’s clampdown on academia is forcing many Chinese researchers into a difficult corner
- Recent US moves have prompted fears in the Chinese-American community due to ‘the appearance of racial profiling’
- Scientists and students with Chinese origin are seen by some US politicians as agents of Beijing
Science knows no borders. But if it does, the United States has a lot to thank China for in helping to build its global tech supremacy.
More than 10 per cent of US inventions today are made by scientists of ethnic Chinese origin, according to research in a recent book by Harvard professor William R. Kerr. And most of the artificial intelligence scientists in the US who are immigrants came from China, according to research by think tank MacroPolo.
Collectively known as scientists “with Chinese origin”, they are a core building block of the US technology ecosystem and a group that is facing increased scrutiny in the US due to concerns over possible espionage.
“The policies of the Trump administration to weaken Chinese talent for America are foolish,” said Kerr, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and the author of the The Gift of Global Talent. “The United States needs to ensure good intellectual property protection, but efforts to isolate and diminish the Chinese talent component can have long-term negative consequences for our country,” he said.
How to protect intellectual property without scaring away some of the world’s top talent is a major challenge for the Trump administration as many of China’s best and brightest currently contribute a great deal to US innovation, and they are now caught in the middle of the raging US-China tech war.