In the race to attract the world’s smartest minds, China is gaining on the US | CNN
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.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/29/china/china-reverse-brain-drain-science-tech-competition-us-intl-hnkOpen linkView original on lemmy.zip198
Comments88
You mean that when US starts blocking visa and cutting science budget, scientists look for another place?
I mean… it’s not exactly an upgrade.
I don't know. China is smart enough to realize that a country needs science and scientists should be enabled to do science. There will be censorship in some areas, but there's not a government that's just hostile to science in general and trying to shut it down because of some idiotically regressive dogma, as in the USA. Going to a country that considers it a good thing, and worth investing in, to lead the world in science would be an upgrade.
That's right. It's an upgrade by virtue of supplying the material means to do large amounts of science. To provide the education people need, give them labs, tools and materials to work with. All of us would benefit from those scientific discoveries.
Do they get to bypass the "great firewall"?
I don't think that's necessarily the case, but either way the firewall isn't impregnable if you put your mind to it.
How do you get through the American firewall that blocks American access to sites the government doesn't like?
VPNs. You do know that that's a real thing people of multiple states need to do to access pornographic material and circumvent age restriction tech right?
Clearly I'm being to subtle...
Sorry, when it comes to China stuff I can never be to sure, people get very tribal about it
You are actually stupid if you think scientists will have more freedom in China than the US.
I suppose it really depends on what freedoms you consider important and how much you weigh things. It is true, in china, you cant be openly critical of the regime. FWIW, that is increasingly true in the US.
However, in china, you are free to not be killed by violence. You are free to get affordable healthcare. You are free to get affordable high quality food. You are free to get affordable housing (outside of Beijing and a few other financial centers). You are free to get an affordable high quality education. I dunno. There are tradeoffs. The US is increasingly offering less and less by way of substantive freedoms and is becoming more and more authoritarian.
Also, have you actually been to china? How much of what you know about china is based in outdated information from 30 years ago or might just be straight up propaganda? I have been in the last 10 years and it blew my mind and changed a lot about how viewed the country.
The scientists clearly disagree, and they'd definitely know better than you would
Can you read what is the very first sentence on that page, then read again what the previous comment said, and then reflect on true stupidity?
Pure projection
Some areas lol. China is the same thing as the US. All government is the same it does not matter where you are, they always turn against their people.
I'm very anti authoritarian and anti statist but this doesn't always happen. You can't look at say Burkina Faso with Thomas Sankara at it's head and Nazi Germany and say they're the same in how the government treated the people
Kinda is. America is on its way to being as authoritarian as China, just with a Christian bent, which is so much worse.
So much worse than being jailed for talking about democracy? At least in the United States we can all run to a blue state… For now. However, I am curious to see if Trump does anything with his super special banned words.
Not really.
China doesn't protect freedom of speech. They don't even allow citizens to own their houses.
America doesn't protect freedom of speech already, and we're not even a full year into our fascist takeover
Yeah, you're an idiot.
Dude, are you stupid? Have you not seen what Trump is doing?
Tell us specifically what you're referring to.
The sueing people for reporting the truth, the threatening networks for people saying things they don't like, various attacks on schools (Harvard in particular) to silence protests (and force indoctrination), attacking law firms for working for people they don't like, targeting private individuals who are pro Palestine, and more that I'm not going to look up for you. The Trump administration is the worst thing we've ever had for free speech in America and, if they actually get their way, it'll be worse than China.
Anything's possible when you make shit up
What's your point?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_China
https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2015/03/chinese-law-on-private-ownership-of-real-property/
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2019670548/2019670548.pdf
https://medium.com/@hrnews1/report-93-of-people-in-china-own-their-own-homes-3610ae104cc4
My point is that chinese citizens being able to own their homes is an easily verifiable fact, and that you're either deliberately lying or too stupid to walk and chew at the same time
In terms of getting to do science without harassment, it absolutely is. Now I wouldn't go myself because I'm basically allergic to authoritarianism, but if I was another "I just wanna make rockets" guy it'd be a pretty tempting offer.
Ummm… In China, prohibited or heavily restricted areas of research include democracy, human rights, Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, Tiananmen, criticism of the Communist Party, censorship circumvention tools, human reproductive cloning, genetic modification of human embryos for reproduction, stem cell work beyond 14 days of embryo development, unapproved clinical stem cell applications, organ transplantation outside regulated systems, unauthorized cryptography, dual-use or national-security technologies, nuclear technology, unrestricted sharing of genomic or health data, foreign collaboration on sensitive datasets, and archaeological or historical research that challenges official state narratives.
Have you ever read the list of words you can’t use when applying for grants in the US? Here’s the list: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2025/03/15/these-197-terms-may-trigger-reviews-of-your-nih-nsf-grant-proposals/
Imagine not being able to make research just because it focuses in the wrong topics according to the current government, topics like females, the climate crisis, mental health, racism and inequality.
The Gulf of Mexico being in there is the icing on the cake of some people in this world are too fucking stupid and toxic to be trusted in any kind of position where they'll have influence over other people's lives.
What was that list in 2021? 😂
Anything's possible when you make shit up
Saying something is made up doesn’t mean it’s made up
Lol no but the complete absence of substantiating evidence does
Prove me wrong by finding examples of each. If you don’t then you have no evidence.
Do some reading about the terms "burden of proof" and/or "proving a negative", then go stand in a corner and feel ashamed of yourself
You are actually stupid if you think scientists will have more freedom in China than the US.
Who the heck said anything about freedom?
Thanks for the compliment. :)
If it wasn't an upgrade they wouldn't be successfully recruiting well-educated expats
Plenty of people made shitty choices. The moment they try to talk openly, they will regret it.
You sound confident for someone with absolutely no basis for your assertions
Errrr, you can't pay me enough to work in China. Why go from an county starting to go towards authoritarianism to a country that is ALREADY authoritarianism. China is def not the lesser of the two evils.
China's authoritarianism is more palatable for the people who live in it because they don't deport people to random 3rd world countries' terrorist prisons. If you're valued, they make your life exceptional. But this all comes with the looming threat of "speak out against us and you'll go to jail without trial". So basically you live under fear in both China and the US, but in China you know what to do to avoid being a target and in the US it can be pretty random
Honestly, if they offered me a million euro per year salary, I'd go and be quiet as a lamb. But I don't think they want me in the first place and also they probably know my opinion of the country.
In China they also imprison the wealthy that exploit people. I may not agree with how China treats their citizens but they have some things right.
No they don't. They only do that if you become too powerful. Nobody can be more than Xi Ping. If you are then you get punished..
Yeah actually they do
only if threatens the politburo that is, just like JACK MA was getting to big and they made up charges to get rid of him.
Ehhhh so and so. They imprison you once it gets too public. Otherwise they're happy about the money.
There is a literal concentration camp for theUyghurs because of their religion. They are sending jets and navy ships to sovereign nations all over south east Asia. Even building man made island to build bases to do so. There is a social points system that is designed to punish the poor and middle class.
You're watching too much TikTok bro. China is brainwashing you.
Lol I have never installed the TikTok app even. I can show you a screenshot from the App Store if you don't believe me.
Definitely an issue regionally (and globally because TSMC), but a non-issue to anyone living in China (unless they have family at one of those countries)
I agreed, it's bullshit bad faith diplomacy.
Same as the credit score system in the US then. It's provincial, anyway, not a centralized system. A lot of people in China are saying it doesn't affect their lives too much. Many haven't heard of it.
So this is the worst of them all. But then nearly every single article about it is written by, or cites, Adrian Zenz, a notoriously anti-China reporter. The multi-million person concentration camps might be a myth. There's definitely some human rights abuses going on there though, even the UN has reported on that. But again, this doesn't affect most people.
We're talking about over a billion people in one country. 99.9% of them aren't going to be affected by any of this. Can you say the same regarding the systemic racism, the ICE raids, etc, in the US? And those are accelerating, China seems to be keeping their authoritarianism stable.
social point system has been found out not to be universal, and not all china's provinces have adopted it all. and its not enforced by the ccp.
100% bullshit cooked up by the US state department, be better
I don't even live in the US. I'm just don't use Chinese propaganda apps.
Idk who told you US propaganda couldn't affect you if you didn't live in the US or why you would believe them, kinda stupid on your part
Like. I get it. China is absolutely an authoritarian state. But it also isn't coming apart at the fucking seams, really seems to have its shit together, and offers a very good quality of life if you make enough money, from what I've heard.
It isn't a glittering wonderland or anything but you're not going to be deported for no fucking reason if you're an expert in your field (unless you get on the wrong side of the government).
The USA is coming apart at the seams. It isn't just authoritarianism, it's ineptitude and implosion. They're totally different situations.
This is relevant for immigrants who are trying to escape poverty, almost with no future in their own countries either for their personal or professional aspirations. I am not a China fan, but when you look at countries around the world, many of which are very poor and underdeveloped but with lots of brilliant, hard-working people with dreams and potential, they would rather go to a place where they have at least some stability, predicted living and working conditions, and a future, rather than to a place where one doesn't know whether the potential future mayor of New York City, born and brought up in the USA and hence of course a citizen who happens to be the son of a world-famous filmmaker and a well-known academic, will actually be deported or not. I mean that's a real possibility at this point - let that sink in. (I am not even going for more extreme examples)
I wish things were better, and I wish we didn't live in a world where China, yes, China – of all the countries, might become a viable alternative for people from the developing or underdeveloped world compared to the USA.
Yeah, but there are other and much better places to go than China. The world doesn't consist of only the US and China.
The money, however, is in the US and China. You'll have a better life on average in Europe, but if you're super aspirational about your career and total compensation, Europe sucks.
LOL
Trust me. I'm a software engineer in EU. I could make 4-5x as much in the US. The truly high level compmaxers make even more.
Try asking how much China parts for SWE right now. Then look up what the 996 culture is in China.
Being the 2nd most riches country doesn't mean you get paid more for your skills.
China has the lowest GDP relative to the country's wealth. They simply exploit their people way more than the USA.
There was literally a thread somewhere on the fediverse where someone said their friend (scientist) got invited to China for a 7 figure salary job. That's not a thing in most countries.
I know what the 996 culture is. These are also mostly people working in the private sector. This article is more about government-paid people.
So what country you want to be in depends on whether you're a researcher (China good, US becoming increasingly shit), software engineer (China bad, US good), etc. But it still holds true that the US and China have the highest salary ceilings if you're strategic about it. If you're a scientist here in Estonia, you need to take foreign assignments to make any real money. Otherwise you don't earn shit, especially before you finish your PhD.
Anything's possible when you make shit up
Cope
Yeah. And before this the world didn't only consist of USA but we hinged these conversations on USA. I was commenting in that context.
The dude is brainwashed by TikTok. As a person who's family has a factory in china, it's a terrible place to live.
The number of times I have used TikTok in my life is the integer just below 1.
(And now I am getting a sense of what that "other kind" of echo chamber these platforms are becoming as opposed to that kind of echo chamber Twitter etc are)
I mean the damn thing is banned here.
They absolutely are less evil than the US and by a wide margin
Care to explain?
Absolutely!
The US was born from genocide and built by slavery. We've been at war constantly for close to three centuries now. We have a long and extremely well documented history of invading and overthrowing democratically elected governments around the world to further our foreign policy that is still verifiably ongoing. We have military bases occupying every habitable continent. We have the largest prison population on earth both total and per capita, and we have explicit allowance in our constitution for slavery as a punishment, this is not a coincidence. We let our law enforcement murder people with impunity. Our elected officials engage in blatant bribery and open corruption without consequence, and we're finding new ways to lower the bar on that front every day. We surveil our own citizens and the rest of the world constantly, and we use that information to bully and blackmail dissenters into submission, and when that fails we assassinate them. Our government knowingly allowed Epstein to sex traffic children for years unimpeded because it gave us an easy way to control a bunch of celebrities and foreign dignitaries, and when he became a liability he was extrajudicially murdered. We spend billions maintaining our surveillance and military occupation networks while our own citizens die from preventable illnesses and the breakdown of basic infrastructure. We're actively gutting our education system, medical care is increasingly unaffordable and for people outside of major urban centers straight up unavailable as more hospitals are closed entirely. Economic inequality is worse than it's ever been, many americans have no hope of ever actually owning a home and are a paycheck or two away from financial ruin. We've always been fucking evil and we're getting worse at an accelerating rate.
What little military conflict China has been involved in over the same time frame, and the rest of their history for that matter, has been limited to their immediate surroundings, regardless of arguable justifiability the scope and scale are significantly smaller than the US. For per capita incarceration rate China isn't even in the top 100 globally, and their total prison population is lower than ours despite having more than 4 times our population. Chinese law enforcement and elected officials who abuse their positions are actually punished for it, up to and including execution, as are their billionaires. Clearly they also have a robust surveillance apparatus and aren't afraid to use it in support of their own foreign policy and domestic security, but we've got no evidence to suggest they're up to anything close to the sort of degenerate fuckery we've been committing. Their level of investment in domestic infrastructure is absolutely unmatched, they're actively prioritizing reduction of wealth inequality and regional disparity, directly improving rural areas, and and their allies benefit from similar improvements via the Belt & Road Initiative & similar programs. Their citizens have one of the highest rates of home ownership in the world, around 90%. However imperfect they may be they're causing far less harm overall than the US and are steadily improving.
Is it really gaining on someone if the other racer ahead of you stops turns around and runs back toward you going the wrong way? I mean I guess that's gaining but it doesn't feel like the right word.
There are always isolated exceptions, but the idea to move from the US to China because the US is becoming more and more autocratic is baseless. China has been a dictatorship for decades, and it doesn't get better because the US getting worse.
The list of researchers and others professionals leaving the US for Canada, Australia, Europe, and other democratic states is much longer. This article doesn't make sense.
As an addition, a report citing a 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.
Fyi this is a full time anti-china propaganda account, just look at their posting history
i think i found the dumbest person on this platform
So did you look at their posting history and find any indication that I'm wrong? Or does the idea that organized anti-chinese propaganda exists at all just hurt your feelings?