Chinese Students, Scholarship, and US Innovation

Abstract

Perhaps no other issue we cover in this book elicits a more visceral response than the role of foreign talent in US society. This chapter focuses on the exploitation of US academic institutions, including China’s policies targeting Chinese students and researchers overseas. It delves into China’s policy of civil–military fusion, laws that compel its citizens to cooperate with the government and security services, and how Beijing is not a neutral actor. It explores how the CPC does not share the same values that the US, EU, and other like-minded countries do, and how this complicates mitigation strategies because the negotiation is not over individual policies but against a different system. It explores policy solutions to enable the US to continue to encourage academic exchange, and an influx of scientific “talent” from China, while at the same time finding ways not just to stop the hemorrhaging of critical industrial and military technologies, but “play offense” and continue to grow our national innovation base.