Why the doors to America are closing for Chinese tech students | Hacker News Reader

Why the doors to America are closing for Chinese tech students

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64 pointsthetechlead58 comments

I wonder if Chinese tech students who are unable to find jobs in sensitive sector in America will have to return to China, leading to a reverse brain drain.

The Chinese nuclear weapons program and missile program were both helped greatly when Qian Xuesen[1], one of the co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, returned to China during the Red Scare in the 1950s.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen

This can be particularly bad for the high-tech sector, think Intel, Qualcomm etc.

I think due to the US inability to fix fundamental issues with regards to upward mobility, education and a fuck you attitude on the world stage. Anything they do to counter China will only hasten the rise of China and their decline.

A vast majority of the Chinese international students I met in college were:

Already incredibly wealthy (if you think inequality is bad in the US, you should see Shanghai or other parts of China) and had no intentions of staying in the US and were just here for education. It was extremely common to see Chinese students driving around in BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, and very often nicer cars, and it became something of a stereotype with most of the people I knew. Not to mention my university was taxpayer funded.

Ever since the recession most states have cut funding for public universities down to nothing, so they have to rely on rich international students paying exorbitant tuition in order to subsidize costs. It's pretty likely that it was those students and not taxpayers that were funding your education.

> Not to mention my university was taxpayer funded.

Assuming it was a US university, the Chinese students were paying a special extra-high tuition for international students.

I think their point was that it was a public university. At least in my experience, you'll see less (they still exist) obviously wealthy students. It makes the wealthy international students more jarring/juxtaposed.

Back when I actually bothered to investigate the matter (more than ten years ago), there were no universities that were taxpayer funded in the way that everyone expects when you say that (no to low tuition). Has that changed?

The data shows that the wealthy Chinese are fleeing and the USA is gaining.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/millionai...

Why is that relevant? The US has always been a great place to live in if you are rich.

While that's vacuously true on account of the fact that being rich is fundamentally good no matter where you are, I'd argue that China is even better to live in if you're rich.

Rich in the US means best healthcare in the world, best education and eniterely risk free from political persecution.

I don't know, but health care is at least as good in Europe, if not better.

I'm pretty sure some huge companies have important advantages by portraying that the expensive one of the US is better. But I highly doubt it.

And for the really rare cases for rich person's, people fly where the best specialist is.

Some places, definitely not public healthcare.

You've never been in Belgium obviously

Not if you value political freedom

Any examples of rich people doing things in the US that’d be persecuted in China? Donating to the Libertarian party perhaps? Most of the time I’d imagine the rich are aligned with the status quo.

Avoiding political persecution (at least what I meant by it) is more about kissing the right asses and not stepping on the wrong persons toes. Rich in the US does not mean living in a minefield.

Participating in a religion, criticizing the communist party, speaking out about forbidden topics and more. Mostly though the system will take you down for not paying enough bribes or pissing off the wrong officials.

No. You never know when the commie nomenclature decides you're the enemy of the state, strips you out of your wealth and sends the execution bus at your front door.

" I'd argue that China is even better to live in if you're rich."

? If you're rich in the US, you stay rich as long as you keep your money.

In China, your RMB is worth what the Party says it's worth, and you can be arbitrarily destroyed for political reasons.

Excepting issues like 'cheap labour' - on most other secular issues, America is a better place to be rich, once you're rich. (ie notwithstanding non culturally secular issues like the fact most people generally prefer their home country for obvious reasons)

Currency manipulation is what every central bank does. It's their job. The Chinese are not particularly special in this regard.

Yes, they absolutely are.

The RMB is a fictitious currency because a) the central bank is politically controlled b) there are currency controls c) lending is driven by the state and d) it's opaque.

The Chinese government has magical monetary policy powers, they can do anything.

The US has a fair bit of transparency, no political control and no capital controls. That adds up to a fairly 'fair market value' for USD. They can get away with shenanigans, but not remotely like China.

The Euro is the strongest of the big currencies, mostly by virtue of the fact many countries share a currency, and they are all afraid the other would print money and play games ... so in effect you get super strict rules.

Euros are backed by assets according to rules. There's some sneakyness, but it's all papered over with rules.

The USD is backed by the US gov, and since 2007 a lot of real estate. Also, because it's a seigneurage currency, it's kind of backed by the fact everyone around the world uses it.

The RMB is just whatever the party wants it to be worth.

China wants everyone to respect the RMB, they want to make more international transactions etc. but for that the rest of the world needs to see it's reliable. But in order for that, China has to play by a set of rules and not play harry potter with money. But they want to keep the magic wand (it's rational for them to want that power), so they will have a hard time making RMB go much further than their immediate periphery. Nobody wants to hold RMB.

Indeed, it is not hard to see this reverse brain drain as a reflection of relative under-representation of East Asians in tech management.

The opposite: 'mobility' is the fundamental reason people leave their home country (China) to have a significantly better standard of living - which they do have.

Mobility problems are mostly for Americans, not for ex-pats.

Geopolitics is a little important, but for most people, it's about their job, their opportunity.

It's troublesome because 99% of US companies and Chinese ex-pats just want to do work and are getting caught up in geopolitics.

But to be fair: this is a real problem. Espionage, influence, interference is a thing. Here in Canada, the Chinese gov. is directly influential in student activities etc. - at Ryerson in Toronto, a young Tibetan woman was elected head of the student union and it met with fierce and organized resistance from Chinese students, supported by tentacles of the state. As a small example.

That said it'd be nice if there were better ways past this problem, because it's not a problem for most of us!

In electronics, the success of areas like Shenzhen and the relative expense of engineering in the US has decimated non-defense industry. In 2002, there were 385,000 electrical engineers in the US. In 2014, there were only 300,000. (https://www.computerworld.com/article/2487847/what-stem-shor...) Why should foreign students expect to work in relatively expensive industries that are losing employees in the US?

According to the BLS there were 324,600 electrical and electronics engineers in the US in 2016.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electri...

A bit of a decline but "decimated" is too strong a word for a decline from 385,000 to 324,600, and much of that is due to smartphones and tablets (and single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi) that reduced the need for custom electronics. For example: in the 90s I worked for a company that made a custom handheld device. Now that product is an app.

The rapidly increasing presence of electronics everywhere (cars, "intelligent" fridges, etc), should have caused a dramatic rise in the number of engineers, so I would say "decimated" is somewhat justified.

I used the word "decimated" because electronics are so integral to productivity that there should be an explanation for the missing growth from 385,000. The fact that there's a decline at all is a double whammy.

A prominent Beijing scholar who recently fled to the United States has warned that China was sending "spies" to American universities, and urged US institutions to tread carefully on academic co-operation.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1437005/expelled-pek...

From Wikipedia: According to Robert Hannigan, former Director of the Government Communications Headquarters, Chinese hackers have engaged in economic espionage against British universities and engineering companies, on behalf of the Chinese government.

What better instrument than a graduate student?

Sure, we want to be open and inclusive to everyone, but don't be stupid. Don't let the country that literally partners up with North Korea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93North_Korea_rela...) and have hacked and infiltrated other countries before have open access to cutting edge technology.

During university, I've heard from a chinese student (From China), who's dad owned a high tech factory. He told me the plan was to get a job at the most reputable tech firm in that industry, and learn from it, then bring it back to his dad.

God forbid, a kid who wants to work in the family business! He must be up to something no good, being from an evil Communist state. Wait, how do family businesses exist under Communism? head explodes

If China didn't have a massive state-sponsored corporate espionage program these students would have a case. But China does, so the students are going to have to deal with the vetting required to make sure they aren't a part of it.

I knew a lot of Chinese students in grad school (computer science) and saw none of this. This article smells fishy.

Its actually new. In the past year trump can basically unofficially prevent chinese student from getting visas

It is the same situation for Indian students, but due to visa and green card quotas and long processing delays. I'm hoping this leads to a boon for the Indian technology sector, which has already seen a resurgence over the last few years.

The American Manhattan Project came about because Germany forced a lot of Jewish scientists out of their research jobs in the thirties.

Those scientists moved to the States, which was America's gain and Germany's loss when lots of Weapons Research happened during the forties.

America seems determined to lose out when Chinese scientists are barred from US jobs, or when Chinese space engineers are refused any interaction with NASA.

One they were killing jewish scientist. They were running for their lives.

Two most of these people are students and there a huge line for students to come into US universities. Unless china has a another plan to invest heavily in western free and democratic schooling they won't lose that edge.

I've heard that AI and semicon are going on the export control list, and even a US national communicating knowledge with someone is a "deemed export". Does this mean all Chinese H1-Bs are going to be barred from working at Microsoft, Google, Intel, and Qualcomm?

It means that AI is going to be sequestered to buildings with big unfriendly signs at the door "No Foreign Persons Beyond This Point" and data will have to be managed in ways similar to medical, financial, legal, or payment data.

Long ago I worked in defense and had some export controlled hardware (unlocked/no restriction high performance GPS and satellite technology)

What it meant was that to work on our stuff you had to be a "US Person" and "export" could be a conversation with the wrong person. In practice it meant the work couldn't be shared with students from a short list of countries. The punishment for infractions could be as little as recording and notification and as severe as significant prison terms. "Export" happens quite a lot and usually consists of innocuous mistakes.

But given the broad definition of AI and semiconductor design, however, and inclusion of other technologies like "Logistics" (seriously, the whole category, not a subfield) within emerging technologies list, wouldn't this, in practice, make whole companies no-go-zones for Chinese H1-Bs?

I can't see Intel or Applied Materials or even UPS having Chinese H1-Bs around in the future. While there are some here who wouldn't mind having a Chinese Exclusion Act in their industry, I'm hopeful a majority of voices here will see the problem inherent with moves like this.

Qian Xuesen would like to have a word with you.

from the grave?

Har har... but seriously, look up his story. It's not hard to see other Chinese students today in his (figurative) boat.

How many advantages does America have left if China gains a decisive edge in its research capabilities?

I count military and control of the international monetary system. That isn't a winning hand unless the Chinese shoot themselves in the foot with corruption or a return to their communist roots.

English is a huge advantage. I don't see the rest of the world clamouring to learn Mandarin any time soon. It's a benefit, sure, but not a necessity.

Who, exactly, doesn't understand that the US university system requires a certain number of grad students to have the research output it produces, and a great way to close that gap would be to improve secondary education in the US?

Also, I have a bit of ill will toward US universities that turns down US students in favor of Chinese students. I'm looking at you, UCSD.

> Who, exactly, doesn't understand that the US university system requires a certain number of grad students to have the research output it produces, and a great way to close that gap would be to improve secondary education in the US?

Betsy DeVos.

There aren't many students fit for grad school (in the sciences) that are held back by poor secondary education. Obviously, some specialized programs could accelerate top kids farther, faster, but they're mostly already grad-school capable.

This is quite a tangent... But how are you sure about this? I have known many high performing kids that felt severely under-challenged in secondary school, or were even picked on for showing genuine interest in their material. Some of them made it through and turned out fine in the end, but some of them didn't. Some ended up dropping out early, or severely under-performing their potential and throwing away a shot at becoming "grad school capable". (Whether on purpose, due to self sabotage or boredom, peer pressure, or bad habits). The teachers did their best but had to focus on the even more at-risk students.

Not all high-performing students will do well regardless of their environment. Some will crash and burn without support, and that doesn't only mean "accelerating them farther faster". It can be enough to group them together with other kids that are similarly enthusiastic and curious, so that they don't shoot each other down.

The majority of high school graduates are enrolling in college. Among people in the top 1% by talent, that number is in the 90%'s, no? So the kids not getting face-time with college and grad school options is a small sliver.

Also, there don't seem to be any other secondary education systems, in other states or countries, that are doing surprisingly better.

I sort of feel like it can have a big effect if done well or poorly - secondary school is the intro to biology, chemistry, and physics. A very poorly run school can really harm students interest in those subjects.

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