Another reason is the intense, increasing sinophobia in the USA today. I live here and the anti-China fearmongering/hostility is as palpable as oxygen. It's literally everywhere.If you look up this news on reddit you see people arguing over things like how some of those scientists are born in US 2nd or even further generation migrants and should be referred to as American and not Chinese. And so they don't understand how China can have this pull. They are missing the point. Being a Chinese national is about being a citizen of the nation state of PRC; being Chinese is about being part of the civilization state of China, the two are orthogonal. The whole thing about PRC is to bring about revitalizing China the civilization state, therefore when diaspora Chinese see this goal on the horizon they will of course be attracted to it regardless of which nation state they are a citizen of.
When the govt and mainstream media repeatedly refer to you as a "communist spy", "traitor", "not American", etc. you will eventually start looking elsewhere. One country is openly hostile towards you, while another welcomes you with open arms and flowers. It's not surprising to see people choose the latter over the former.
I doubt the US govt would be introspective towards their own mistakes anytime soon. So they will continue to witchhunt ethnic Chinese scientists while simultaneously being ignorant as to why some are choosing to move back to China.
It's a repeat of Qian Xuesen all over again..
