China Is Suffering a Brain Drain. The U.S. Isn’t Exploiting It | Hacker News Reader

China Is Suffering a Brain Drain. The U.S. Isn’t Exploiting It

nytimes.com

26 pointsjseliger6 comments

The immigration issue in USA overall shows massive incompetence of US Congress and then I really admire the US founding fathers who made it impossible to get anything done in Congress. It is a feature and not a bug. I know at least 3 major bad ass Chinese researchers moving back to China purely because of harassment by immigration department. All of them did exceptionally well in China. They however would have preferred USA.

USA should realize that it is their system that makes the country great and not skin color or race. Chinese, Indians, South Africans and many others can benefit immensely from US society. Protect your systems and not race and USA will continue to be the leader.

Maybe I'm out of touch, but my understanding is that US has historically had lots of Chinese talent, but recently these researchers have been moving back to China at a higher rate because of improvements in Chinese academia, and also red tape in the United States. Didn't think there was an increasing brain drain in China, rather the opposite

Yes, you are out of touch.

US historically did not have lots of Chinese talent but USA was less Xenophobic post repeal of chinese exclusion ac and civil rights movement and as a result some Chinese people were able to move to USA. China at that time was dirt poor and had very low talent pool despite their large population.

With time China did a lot better and their talent pool grew non linearly, but US immigration laws remain outdated so how many people USA could take in remained the same and post trump there was targeted harassment of Chinese origin people in USA. A lot of people are moving back to china but the primary reason is red tape and harassment by American immigration agencies.

That was pre-COVID. During and post COVID, the exodus is back on again. China is in a stealth recession right now with high youth unemployment, so there are still economic factors driving this.

The United States is currently committing two major policy mistakes:

     1. Not allowing more immigrants
     2. Not relaxing zoning to allow more housing in high opportunity areas.

Together these two policy mistakes stifle technological progress and economic growth, and consequently our capability to address societal problems like climate change, poverty and disease. The United States occupies a singular position in the world to both attract and integrate immigrants into its cultural and governmental institutions and effect positive change. No other nation comes close.

Related, a declining population poses major demographic and policy challenges that only immigration will be able to address in the short term. This video is a must watch for understanding why a population decline before we have technologically addressed climate change is actually worse for the environment than a population increase:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=LBudghsdByQ&si=b...

https://archive.ph/fbt1A

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