Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

nbcnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 251 posts

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#171

Post by cle »

pjc50 wrote: post #16
Causality1 wrote: post #13

We're quite far from the scale tipping in that direction, but it makes me curious about whether the US government has the legal authority to say "educating foreigners is no longer in the national interest, therefore it is no longer a valid reason to remain in the United States" and decimate the foreign student population essentially overnight.

It can almost certainly unilaterally revoke all the visas. Why the US wants to blow up its own higher education system would be beyond me, though.

There doesn't have to be a logical reason, it just has to make people feel good. Politics 101.

Something like this wouldn't surprise me at all, given the current political atmosphere.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#172

Post by hello_moto »

refurb wrote: post #56
hello_moto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This statement seems true without context but false with context. Allow me to provide the context: If you're a Chinese internantional student living in the USA where the #1 guy in the country uses Identity Politics as its arsenal to win and lead the country, you, as an outsider, will feel insecure w.r.t of races. If you're a Chinese international student coming back home to your country of origin, you're used to the…

You China's disregard for human rights is not a big deal because if you're from there you're used to it?

In any country, every body say something about human rights but at the end of the day countries implement human-right laws/regulations as they see fit.

What about those drones the Americans sent to kill random people?

What about police brutality?

Per-individual base, human also tend to use phrases like "human rights" to cover up their problems. I find it interesting that in the US, the people argue a lot about Abortion vs Right-to-Live meanwhile in California, they glamorized Sex for all ages. American Pies and a bunch of other chick-flick/high-school football movies that often highlights sex-on-prom-day. Social pressure of having sex between unmarried couple. I wonder if those contributes to the need for abortion just because they're not ready.

"human rights"

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#173

Post by robocat »

FreedomToCreate wrote: post #100
robbrit wrote: post #92

Does anybody know how hard it is for non-Chinese citizens to live and work in China? One of the competitive advantages of the US has been its ability to draw top talent from all over the world and not just its own citizens. Chinese citizens leaving the US is not a good thing, but it is just one nationality. If China manages to draw talent from everywhere, then the US has a real problem ahead of it. For example, my te…

Its very difficult to get any type of semi-permanent/permanent work visa for foreigners in China. A lot of foreigners who go to Shenzhen to work on a hardware start-up, are doing it illegally in technical terms. They are all on business visas on which you can't start a business in China. And beyond just work, civil liberties are extremely limited in China. You are good as long as you don't get the government looking…

And to add, Shenzhen is a special economic zone (SEZ), which has relatively less harsh attitudes towards enforcing visa rules.

It felt like an extremely capitalist city when I visited a few years ago - everyone is trying to make a buck. I did see hundreds of cops get bused in to deal with some sort of street vendor fight (which at the time reminded me of when I visited South Lake Tahoe one night).

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#174

Post by asdfgasd »

asdfman123 wrote: post #41
jhedwards wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was living in China this didn't bother most of the Han Chinese I met. Most of them were so concerned about lifting their families out of poverty and providing for their future that if you said to them "but you can't speak out about human rights abuses" they'd just look at you like "why the hell would I want to do that".

Maybe they don't talk about it because they know they are not allowed to talk about it. I knew a Chinese exchange student who would debate all sorts of things, but when you brought up the Chinese government she would come to a hard stop and say "I don't talk about that." It's probably smart if you're from an authoritarian country.

Maybe you should actually spend some time in China before making silly assumptions.

The Chinese government is not overly concerned with individual citizens sharing anti-government sentiment. It's not a problem for most people that aren't activists. Most people are concerned with much more basic aspects of life... supporting their families, getting good jobs, time for leisure...

It doesn't mean it's acceptable, but assuming that every Chinese citizen lives in fear of the government cracking down on their political complaints is totally unfounded. The exchange student you know could just as well have been sick of westerners thinking they know more about the CCP than someone raised in China.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#175

Post by user5994461 »

ronnier wrote: post #104
Dig1t wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dating game odds are way worse in China actually, what with the massive shortage of women. https://www.economist.com/special-report/2017/11/23/a-distor...

Maybe in general, but being educated in the US with good job prospects in China might change that.

If we are to believe the charts from the article, about half of the unmarried men are illiterate. That's insane. Back to your point, Chinese who worked in the US are educated (fairly rich too) and will do just fine.

Also, don't be surprised by prices going up ten fold over a decade. Inflation in developed countries can be 2 digits per year, everything is going up crazy quick.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#176

Post by rhcom2 »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #21
wesleyfsmith wrote: post #9

The most concerning quote: "About 80 percent of Chinese students who get degrees abroad now go back — up from about 33 percent in 2007, according to China’s Ministry of Education. Some 15 percent take jobs in China’s booming tech sector." Attracting top global talent has always been a competitive advance for America, and it's not a good sign for our economy if we can't retain people that we are educating here.

This is just as true with Indian students. Most people don't know how hard, how expensive, and how long it takes for someone to become a naturalized citizen. Combined with hostile rhetoric towards immigrants - and staying away from politics as much as possible, this is a big factor and not always precisely targeted to "illegal" immigration, the US is just not as attractive for knowledge workers as it was 5-10 years a…

A friend's brother from India chose to study CS in Canada over the US due to the hostile political climate. He said, while he got into US schools and probably wouldn't have had any problem the idea that something could change a year or two down the line was a looming specter he'd rather just avoid.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#177

Post by panda88888 »

An interesting tidbit for non-Mandarin Chinese speakers. The sea turtle doesn’t refer to analogy of grown sea turtles returning to their home when young, but it’s a homonym to 海歸 (same sounds as sea turtle 海龜), that roughly means “return from sea (ie. abroad)”.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#178

Post by my_first_acct »

hostilerhetoric wrote: post #140
throwaway5752 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just as true with Indian students. Most people don't know how hard, how expensive, and how long it takes for someone to become a naturalized citizen. Combined with hostile rhetoric towards immigrants - and staying away from politics as much as possible, this is a big factor and not always precisely targeted to "illegal" immigration, the US is just not as attractive for knowledge workers as it was 5-10 years a…

Name a single time that Donald trump has said that he wants to prevent highly intelligent, highly educated people from other countries coming here. Name a single instance of it. I defy you to.

Welcome to HN.

A quick Google search on "Chinese grad student restrictions" yielded an article [1] from December 2018 with the headline "US Considers New Restrictions on Chinese Students". The source is the US government's own news outlet, Voice of America.

[1] https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/trump-administration-c...

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#179

Post by noteanddata »

noteanddata wrote: post #75
wesleyfsmith wrote: post #9

The most concerning quote: "About 80 percent of Chinese students who get degrees abroad now go back — up from about 33 percent in 2007, according to China’s Ministry of Education. Some 15 percent take jobs in China’s booming tech sector." Attracting top global talent has always been a competitive advance for America, and it's not a good sign for our economy if we can't retain people that we are educating here.

I am surprised after reading the comments here:) the simple fact is that there are more students from China to US over the years because more students can afford the tuitions, while the H1B visa quota remain the same; also there are more and more students from global as well to compete on the H1B quota. so most of the students have to go back simply because there is not enough visa for them to stay.

to put some data here: https://www.iie.org/Research-and-Insights/Open-Doors/Data/In... in 2017/2018 year, there are 363K students from China studying in USA.

https://www.uscis.gov/news/news-releases/uscis-reaches-fy-20... 2018 H1b visa total quota is 85K in total for all students from all countries.

while usually https://www.vox.com/2017/4/13/15281170/china-india-tech-h1b-... so, each year, it's probably around 10K to 15K students from China can get H1B visa, compared to a total of 300K students in China, that basically means about 90% students will have to go back.

it's more about fast growing number of students from China, also working in US requires H1B visa.

Re: China's rising tech scene threatens US brain drain as ‘sea turtles’ return home

#180

Post by user5994461 »

baybal2 wrote: post #161
robbrit wrote: post #92

Does anybody know how hard it is for non-Chinese citizens to live and work in China? One of the competitive advantages of the US has been its ability to draw top talent from all over the world and not just its own citizens. Chinese citizens leaving the US is not a good thing, but it is just one nationality. If China manages to draw talent from everywhere, then the US has a real problem ahead of it. For example, my te…

> Does anybody know how hard it is for non-Chinese citizens to live and work in China? It used to be easy... My first work visa to China took just 1 week to get: no criminal check, no work history check, no academic credentials check, you just get it. Now people are saying it takes from 1 to 3 months. Dark skinned people have hard time in China. Fat people, even worse. Shenzhen looks like a totalitarian fairyland — a…

Thanks. That's a great write up.
Post reply on HN