Chinese scientists leaving US, study finds

Department of Research, Strategic Studies and International Relations 04-10-2024

Scientists of Chinese descent in the United States have been leaving the country because of “pull factors” from China and the “push factor” of the US’ 2018 China Initiative, according to major research findings published in an American scientific journal.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, applied Microsoft Academic Graph to analyze trends in the migration of US-based Chinese scientists between 2010 and 2021. The data used for the analysis was extensive, and the trends suggested a brain drain.

Microsoft Academic Graph is a comprehensive database that tracks over 200 million scientists from more than 25,000 institutions worldwide.

A brief on the study, published in July by the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions at Stanford University in California, concluded that the discontinued China Initiative “provided scientists of Chinese descent in the US with higher incentives to leave and lower incentives to apply for federal grants”.

The purported objective of the China Initiative, launched in 2018 by the US Justice Department under former US president Donald Trump and halted in 2022 by the administration of President Joe Biden, was to reduce economic espionage.

The study identified the working countries of researchers through their academic affiliations in publications, and tracked those with Chinese surnames who initially published in the US but later changed their affiliations to institutions abroad.

It identified 19,955 scientists of Chinese descent who began their careers in the US but left for other countries, including China, between 2010 and 2021.

The researchers said that contributing to the trend were “pull factors” from China, including the country’s large and rapidly growing investment in science, its high social prestige and the attractive financial rewards connected to positions in Chinese institutions.

The analysis also revealed a significant “push factor” in the US.Following the implementation of the China Initiative, departures of US-based, China-born scientists increased 75 percent.

As of 2021, the proportion of scientists of Chinese descent who left the US and moved back to China increased to 67 percent, up from 48 percent in 2010. The life sciences field witnessed the most significant exodus abroad, with more than 1,000 such scientists leaving in 2021.

The researchers also conducted an online survey of 1,304 US-based scientists of Chinese descent between December 2021 and March 2022 to find out why more were leaving.

The results revealed the chilling effects of the China Initiative. About 35 percent of the respondents said they felt unwelcome in the US, 72 percent didn’t feel safe as academic researchers, 42 percent were fearful of conducting research, and 65 percent were worried about collaborations with China.

Of the five possible reasons for “not feeling safe as an academic researcher in the US”, most survey respondents — 67 percent of them — pointed to fears of “US government investigations into Chinese-origin researchers”.

The largest single source of funding for basic research in the US is the federal government. However, 45 percent of the respondents said they now avoid federal grant applications, while 61 percent said they have considered leaving the US.

MIT professor Gang Chen, who faced espionage charges under the China Initiative until they were dismissed in 2022, publicly admitted that he was avoiding federally funded research out of fear after undergoing a lengthy legal process, which damaged his reputation and forced many of his students to adjust their career paths.

China has been one of the most important sources of US-based scientists for more than two decades. Of the 34,000 doctoral degrees in science and engineering awarded in the US in 2020, around 5,800, or roughly 17 percent, went to foreign students from China. A vast majority of these students chose to stay in the US back then.

A professor in Houston told China Daily on the condition of anonymity that it is “unfortunate that the China Initiative turned out to be a government-sanctioned persecution of people of Chinese heritage”.

The professor said the federal government was wrong to prosecute people primarily based on race. “It is not a surprise that such a practice has created fear in the community.”

An analysis by Race, Racism and the Law, a civil rights group, concluded that of the 148 defendants across 77 cases in the FBI database, 130 defendants were of Chinese descent.

Only 25 percent of them were convicted, and few of the convictions were related to espionage. The conviction rate was dramatically lower than the Justice Department’s 91 percent overall conviction rate.

In June, Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that while the US still spends more money than any country on research and development, China is set to soon outpace such investment.