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

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

#181

Post by deogeo »

vkou wrote: post #165
deogeo wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying everything is fine. I am saying that xenophobia hasn't had any political power in the US for the last half century - both legal and illegal immigration numbers can attest to that. There may be a lot of xenophobic rhetoric, but actions speak louder than words, and what precious little action there was (bans for Muslim countries that account for a negligible number of immigrants, and detention of childre…

You're missing reductions in visa quotas, detention and strong-armed voluntary deportation of asylum seekers, increased raids and deportation of illegal aliens, significant slow-down in legal immigration processing, an vast increase in demand for supporting evidence in immigration petitions, threats against DACA immigrants, threats of Mexico border closures. All that was accomplished in the three years that this rhet…

All these things I am missing, yet they haven't put a dent into any immigration numbers I was able to find [1]. In fact, "The number of people who became U.S. citizens reached a five-year high in fiscal 2018" [2]. As for the increased deportations: "In 2017, the Trump administration deported 295,000 immigrants, the lowest total since 2006." [3]

So to answer your question, in the event of another Trump victory, I expect immigration to the US to continue at near-record rates, while they continue to be called xenophobic.

[1] https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2017/tab...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/number-of-people-...

[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/key-finding...

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

#182

Post by seanmcdirmid »

cpursley wrote: post #141
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you realize they are 4 times more likely to die in a car accident in China vs the USA. If you are just concerned about survivability, this isn’t a good bet.

I'm guessing this is largely due to seatbelt culture.

There is more: bad roads, lack of traffic law enforcement, weird liability laws that make fatalities more appealing than injuries, lack of liability at all in many cases, etc...

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

#183

Post by yomly »

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…

What industry do you work in now?

What kind of salaries are developers of 5ish years experience earning?

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

#184

Post by flyinglizard »

noir_lord wrote: post #138
strictfp wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from the nordics and I when I was younger I thought of the US as the ultimate place to be. Now, having been there quite a bit, I must say that it really doesn't impress. The impression I got visiting the US in general (NY, Seattle, San Fran, LA), is that it all seems quite ran down, full of inequality and social problems, and lacking soul, mainly from being so consumerist. And although I would concievebly earn a…

I talk to quite a lot of Americans online and many of them really are not aware, as they are programmers they generally earn good (by UK standards very good) money but then you start talking to them about what good health insurance for a family of four costs and suddenly things start to look different. I think in some respects the US has coasted on it's former economic glory - I mean sure Silicon Valley is a mecca fo…

Isn’t health insurance, in the case of tech workers at least, usually covered by the employer?

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

#185

Post by dang »

hostilerhetoric wrote: post #147
bilbo0s wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all honesty it's even kind of going beyond that right now. You could end up being the poor innocent chinese patsy that they arrest for God knows what in some tit-for-tat power display. No one wants to be the dummy sitting in a foreign prison for 10 or 15 years while China and the US argue over their dick sizes. As an American I'd think very carefully about working in China right now for the same reason. No matter…

There is literally zero precedent for what you’re talking about. Immigrants jailed in the US because of import taxes? Because of a trade rework? Never. We interred Japanese after Japan commuted one of the largest terror attacks in US history, that’s it.

Would you please not create accounts to do political battle on HN? That's against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We want thoughtful conversation here, not flamewars.

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

#186

Post by anw »

hostilerhetoric wrote: post #147
bilbo0s wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all honesty it's even kind of going beyond that right now. You could end up being the poor innocent chinese patsy that they arrest for God knows what in some tit-for-tat power display. No one wants to be the dummy sitting in a foreign prison for 10 or 15 years while China and the US argue over their dick sizes. As an American I'd think very carefully about working in China right now for the same reason. No matter…

There is literally zero precedent for what you’re talking about. Immigrants jailed in the US because of import taxes? Because of a trade rework? Never. We interred Japanese after Japan commuted one of the largest terror attacks in US history, that’s it.

While I hesitate to feed the trolling comments...

> We interred Japanese after Japan commuted one of the largest terror attacks in US history, that’s it.

1.) "We" did not inter Japanese. Those who made the rules and followed them during that time did. If by "We" you mean "Americans" then that leads to the next point...

2.) Many of the "Japanese" you say were interred were Americans. They were put into camps not because of any actual reason than how they look and where their ancestry hailed from.

3.) Imprisoning people who have done nothing wrong and have lived their lives in this country should make painfully clear the quote, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

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

#187

Post by opportune »

roboys wrote: post #51
asdfman123 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably because there is a healthy tech industry in China and it's home. If could take classes in China and possibly get a job making 50% more there, I'd probably come back to the US instead. A 50% raise isn't enough to justify being half a world away from my family.

4 times less likely to get murdered in China than in USA. Sounds like a better place to raise a kid too.

As someone not actively involved in crime, gangs, etc. my chance of getting murdered in the US is roughly zero

But I do have political beliefs which would put me under threat in China were I to voice them or act on them. And I would want to raise my children in a place where they won't be discriminated against for being LGBT (although discrimination still happens in the US, at least you can be out and proud. In China, to my knowledge homosexuality is very much "don't ask don't tell")

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

#188

Post by baybal2 »

yomly wrote: post #183
baybal2 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

What industry do you work in now? What kind of salaries are developers of 5ish years experience earning?

1. Electronics. Consumer and industrial

2. Just for any engineering job in China there is a personal "middle income trap" of around net CNY25000-30000 per month. You reach it, and your career progression stalls, possibly for a decade or so.

Progress past the formal "senior" level is a rare, rare luck.

At 30000 net a month, you can live very very well in China.

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

#189

Post by chvid »

chvid wrote: post #102
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…

As far as I can see it is quite easy. Though language and work culture may be a barrier.

I can see you have got answers pointing in two completely different directions.

I was stuck by this statistical from a recent article in SCMP:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3016657/he...

To help narrow its chip gap, Beijing looks east to Taiwan

"There are no official numbers about how many Taiwanese are working at tech companies on the mainland, but a widely cited statistic suggests that about 9 per cent of the island’s population, or 2 million people – including businessmen, managers, students and their families – are living on the mainland."

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

#190

Post by ageofwant »

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.

For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit
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