The US is furthering its own decline by scaring off Chinese scientists
America’s Asian community is the latest diaspora caught in the crossfire of Washington’s foreign policy – and they’ve had enough.
A recent report by the Wall Street Journal found that many top-tier academics of Chinese descent who hold positions in American universities are considering leaving the country over increased escalations between Beijing and Washington. The paper found that 1,400 US-trained Chinese scientists traded their American affiliation for a Chinese one in 2021, and that 40% of Chinese scholars at top research institutions like Harvard and MIT might leave.
Among the main reasons cited by the people who spoke to the WSJ were fears of government surveillance, such as the Trump-initiated FBI “China Initiative” that targeted people of Chinese origin over alleged “economic espionage,” and rising hate crimes against people of Asian descent. Considering the former was essentially a nothingburger that descended into a McCarthyite, racially motivated attack on people of Chinese heritage, both of these have to do with racism.....more
