Yes, because China couldn't have copied Western journals, textbooks, conference proceedings and theses.
Copied a Western journal/textbook/conference proceeding/thesis on how to make nuclear weapons? You don't see how stupid your suggestion is? Go find me a textbook on how to make a nuclear bomb and post the link here. You realize that this is your reply to my Qian Xuesen example, right?
Except those thousands of Chinese people don't "chill" in the United States after graduation. The average PhD holder earns $90,363 dollars per year so for 85% stay rates for Chinese Ph.D. holders, each returnee needs to generate $602,721 of value for the zero-sum (op. cit.) calculation to break even. Unlikely.
First of all, you are going by 2005-2015 aggregate data while we are talking here about how modern China has improved that to an 86% return ratio.
Secondly, it is very likely. Knowledge is a force multiplier of labor. A scientist may run a lab in the US and generate X dollars, but if he returns to China as a specialist, his expertise may allow China to open and institute where he uses basic scientists and trains them to be experts. Now, his effect to China could be 10X, 100X, etc... This is what the Thousand Talents program is about.
Lastly, how much is a person like Qian Xuesen worth? It cannot even be quantified in money. Actually, he could have been a good scientist for the US, but he was a transforming scientist for China. Perfect example of how someone might be worth far less in a developed market than a rising/aspiring one.
Even then, you below say that China is already at the technological frontier and thus there is no "knowledge deficit" to speak of.
Ignorant comment. Knowledge deficit means that knowledge is flowing from the US to China. Just because you are at the forefront doesn't mean you have nothing to learn. You may know 10 things that the other person doesn't know, but he may know 5 things that you don't know. Chinese students are there to get those 5 things and also, while Chinese tech is at the frontier on many fields, there are still fields where China lags.
No, you had China have open migration because it wanted to trade at NTR tariff levels with the United States under Jackson-Vanik. It was individual students that liked money to move to the United States to make more money. Plus, especially with an open economy, trying to micro-regulate migration has significant enforcement problems. With migration, you lose both technology AND people as factors of production in the oft-chance you might get technology later (though small in all historical case studies).
This is shows how far China came. where a person goes is determined largely by that person and not the governments around him. It shows that more and more Chinese scientists choose to return to China than before. It was an ~85% stay rate dropped to a 14% stay rate.
Not really, it was just based on a rough back of the envelope. The US issues 40K H1B visas a year so some multiple (say 2.5x) of the United States seems about right (obviously need to better run metrics here).
So as I said before, China is not USA V2. We don't want immigrants at nearly the same capacity as the US. China is for Chinese people, so it's pointless to calculate. It is case-by-case.
Secondly, where does the 2.5x come from? You know that the population of China is roughly 4x that of the US, right? Or is this another one of your number gaffs?
Yeah, I'm arguing about immigration in the abstract. Implementation is always messy and an administrative lawyer's delight.
Immigration is bringing people to settle in your country. Having a specialist work on a short term contract is not immigration.
What is the US doing to prevent skilled Chinese from leaving?
Legally, it can't do anything. In the gray zone, as I said before, Chinese scientists are not trusted; even cancer researchers at MD Anderson are harrassed with nonseniscal questions of loyalty by the FBI. If it is known that someone will leave, they will find every reason to search everything on him to find a way to stop him at the airport or jail him before.
If anything, the US isn't processing green card and citizenship applications so that Chinese (and other foreign nationals) are being forced to leave.
And that is contrary to your assertion that immigration is good and the US wants to drain China this way.
I just showed you why it does. Your childish, "No it doesn't" doesn't mean anything.
Macroeconomics works in developing countries as well.
Feel like the summary argument for this is that for China as it exists in 2021, in general
- Talent outflows are bad
But sometimes necessary to learn foreign skills.
- Talent inflows are good
From sea turtles. Otherwise, they are not ideal but useable from short term foreign contractors.
- High-tech/high-skilled immigration should be encouraged
From sea trutles. Niche gigs and short term contracts can be given to foreigners when there is need, but true immigration with settling is not and should not be encouraged of true foreigners.
- As the stay rate distribution exists today (most Chinese postgraduates stay in their host country), the migration flow is mainly in favor of the host country (unless you can provide evidence each returnee is on average, 6.7x times more productive than the non-returnee)
The stay rate today is 86% China, 14% host (or US) and the information flow is in favor of China. 6.7X is a number calculated from past stay rates which shows China's progress to today. (I guess it's 6.7X in the opposite direction now, isn't it?) Even so, a China that was information-starved can use those scientists (such as those from the Thousand Talents Program) as fulcrums and force multipliers making 6.7X a modest number. Science is also not measured in dollars. But the trend that Chinese science has overtaken and is overtaking American science in many fields shows the overall benefit towards China in a zero sum game.
- Whether historically talent outflows were good for the US/China/other partners is immaterial given that the level of development and China's distance towards the frontier are drastically different
Historically, the talent flow was in favor of the US but China was in a poor position so as force multipliers, the difference that the few sea turtles made was more beneficial to China as technological boosts than the contributions made by those who stayed in the US as linear workers using American education to work in America. This is shown by Chinese science and tech developing faster than US science and tech. Currently, the return rate is highly in favor of China and even as linear contributors, they pull more weight than the ones that stayed in the US on a 1:1 basis. However, is it not 1:1 because those who return contribute American science to China while those who stayed only continue to circulate America science through the US. That is all they can do as they were students and not highly trained in Chinese science before they were sent out.
(and that we spend a lot of time debating that point is silly)
Not nearly as silly as many of your ignorant assertions, most outstandingly the difference between need and benefit.
