Tang Meng Kit
The US-China rivalry is no longer just a clash of tariffs, navies and diplomatic showdowns. A quieter, subtler front has emerged – one that is nonetheless reshaping the global order and deciding future winners and losers. It’s a contest for people, specifically the scientists, engineers and academic pioneers who will shape the future.
In this emerging struggle, talent is the new oil and the pipelines are shifting as the once-unidirectional flow of talent toward the United States is reversing, redirecting careers, rebalancing innovation and redrawing the map of global power and influence.
Thousands of highly skilled professionals, especially those of Chinese descent, are leaving American institutions for new opportunities in China and elsewhere. This is more than a reversal; it is a redistribution of global brainpower, one that is reshaping research ecosystems and tilting discernibly the balance of global innovation.
Between 2010 and 2021, nearly 20,000 Chinese-born scientists left the United States, a trend that accelerated after 2018. These are not second-string researchers: they include figures like neuroscientist Yan Ning, who left Princeton to lead the Shenzhen Medical Academy, and Gang Chen, a top MIT engineer who returned to Tsinghua University after being cleared of espionage-related charges.
Increasingly under Trump, restrictive visa policies, geopolitics and racialized suspicion are repelling rather than attracting top talent. The previous Trump administration’s China Initiative may be over, but its chilling effect remains.
Chinese and other Asian scientists worry about surveillance, unjust scrutiny or even prosecution. Simultaneously, shrinking research budgets and unstable funding make the US less attractive.
Added to that is a cultural atmosphere strained by rising anti-Asian sentiment. For many scientists, it is not just about funding, it is about a sense of belonging, and increasingly, they feel like they don’t.
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