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The libertarian Cato institute points out that the US has been losing international scientists in recent years whereas not only has China gained but so has "non-US OECD" countries. The latter is code for Europe and AU/NZ/CA.
The immediate cause is probably the misguided and arguably racist "China initiative" which essentially led to a witch-hunt against ethnic Chinese people. But I suspect domestic factors in China and Europe are also responsible. Both have been ramping up R&D spending in recent years and visa policies in Europe are often more favorable for researchers than American policies are. Easier to get and easier to stay.
It is no exaggeration to say that most of STEM innovation in US academia is now being carried out by foreign-born people. So this development should worry Americans. I also think many people in the West underestimate how much genuine innovation there is in China. Viewing data from the Nature Index, which tracks elite science production, it isn't clear that China is far behind anymore. If at all. In areas like EV batteries, China is now ahead of the West. Progress in their semiconductor industry has been faster than even many insiders had expected.
I still think the US has a series of unique advantages over its competitors, but falling prey to scare-mongering campaigns and McCarthyite tactics isn't going to capitalise on them.
Civilizations innovate in the areas in which one can get ahead in. A militaristic society will innovate militarily, a country with a large mining industry will innovate in the military domain etc. The US innovates in media, law and finance. China is an industrial power and therefore that is where innovation will happen. China currently has 26 nuclear reactors under construction with many more planned. Clearly innovating in nuclear power is a great way to get ahead in China while a nuclear power researcher in the west is more likely to produce power points as the final product.
The plan to have Americans do marketing strategies, finance, write legal documents and do sales while the foreigners do the boring technical stuff was doomed to fail. The US taught the world its secrets, created a rift between the people and the elite, and lost its ability to innovate. Pakistanis at Stanford have no connection to most of America and will see the country as a vehicle for their own personal success. Top people are the ones who need the most loyalty, instead the WASP-elites are surrounded by foreigners while much of the elite are actual foreigners. This puts the elite and the people in different universes, while dismantling any sense of noblesse oblige.
Importing tens of thousands of Chinese people into the university system, getting China up to speed, and then trying to keep them making plastic toys won't work. They were obviously going to bring a lot of that know how home. Specifically banning Chinese isn't going to work either. People who moved to Boston at age 25 to do a PhD at MIT never having been in the US before are going to have a much easier time accepting a high paid position in China than American would if that is banned. The US isn't going to be able to police former international students and researchers.
This is an important argument but it would be difficult to combine it with recruiting the best from the world. You'd have to essentially put in practice an officially-sanctioned discriminatory system that tells the best and the brightest from abroad that they will always operate under a glass ceiling despite their abilities. That in of itself would act as a great repellent for any prospective talent. Why work hard in a society where there are limited avenues for personal growth?
So in my view, you'd essentially have to make a choice: either you welcome the best from the world over but with differing loyalties or you aim to consolidate a very homogenous elite but accept that their capabilities will be less. You can't have both. The US elite apparently chose the former and so far, at least, it isn't obvious to me that the US has suffered from it. That may change, then again, it may not.
True, but a lot of them also ended up staying. A non-trivial fraction of top AI talent comes from China. Almost 90% of Chinese postgrads choose to stay in the US. In my view, the US has benefited more than China from this exchange. Just as the US has benefited more than India from their brain drain.
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