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¹ The next several sections incorporate material from the commissioned paper “China’s Patterns of Cooperation in Science and Technology” by Caroline S. Wagner.

race (Deutch, 2018; Herman, 2019; Merisotis, 2015; Xie and Killewald, 2012). This sparked Congress to pass the National Defense Education Act (P.L. 85-864, September 2, 1958), which made low-cost student loans available for students pursuing studies in science, mathematics, and foreign languages (U.S. Senate, n.d.).² Furthermore, immigrant scientists and engineers played a vital role in propelling the United States to the moon during the 1960s (Rovito et al., 2021; Steele, 2015). In addition to the steady stream of foreign talent coming to the United States, the nation maintained some level of scientific exchanges with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe throughout the Cold War.

Today, the U.S. research ecosystem relies on the participation of foreign students, scholars, and professionals, as well as on international interactions and collaborations. The number of foreign-born workers holding at least a bachelor’s degree in the U.S. workforce has grown from 2 million in 1993 to 10 million in 2021, as shown in Figure 2-1.

Furthermore, international graduates have grown in both absolute terms and relative terms in their role in the U.S. skilled workforce; the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce; and the research and development (R&D) workforce. Box 2-1 provides additional insight on how STEM is defined by U.S. government agencies. In 2021, 50 percent of the 10 million international graduates in the U.S. workforce held degrees in STEM fields. While the foreign born make up only 14 percent of the U.S. general population, foreign-born degree holders make up 25 percent of workers with STEM degrees, an increase from 16 percent in 1993. The importance of foreign-born college graduates in U.S. R&D is also on the rise. According to the National Survey of College Graduates, in 1993, the foreign-born share of college graduates was only 13 percent, but this figure rose to 23 percent by 2021 (NCSES, 2021a). Among STEM graduates working in U.S. R&D, the share of foreign-born college graduates rose from 23 percent in 1993 to 36 percent in 2021 (NCSES, 2021a).

In recent years, however, the immigration status of foreign-born STEM graduates has grown more tenuous as fixed numerical limits and per-country caps established by Congress in 1990 have led to growing Green Card backlogs that prevent temporary visa holders from securing U.S. permanent residency and naturalization. In 1993, 31 percent of foreign-born

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² More information about the National Defense Education Act of 1958 is presented in Box 3-2.

STEM graduates were permanent residents and only 5 percent were nonimmigrants (i.e., present in the United States on temporary visas).³ In 2021, the share of foreign-born STEM graduates who are permanent residents had fallen to 19 percent, while the share who are nonimmigrants had tripled to 15 percent. Figure 2-2 illustrates this concerning trend.

The U.S. immigration system effectively acts as a funnel, with education and exchange programs offering a wide opening to a great number of people. More competitive temporary visa programs with numerical limits set by Congress in 1990 narrow the flow considerably. In addition, capped permanent residency slots constrict the flow still further (Hunt and Zwetsloot, 2022).⁴ The impact of STEM workers on temporary visas being unable to secure U.S. permanent residency because of outdated numerical limits is perhaps felt most directly in projects funded by the Department of

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³ This study defines “nonimmigrant” as “a foreign national wishing to enter the United States on a temporary basis, whether for tourism, business, medical treatment, temporary work, or study.”

⁴ In short, outdated immigration policy undermines the United States’ economic and national security.

Defense (DOD). While immigrants represent about 14 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 37 percent of the workforce with advanced degrees on DOD-funded projects (Nice, 2024).⁵ Of the high-skilled immigrants working on DOD-funded projects, 85 percent are naturalized citizens, reflecting the fact that security clearances are often necessary to work on such projects, and such naturalization is unobtainable without first getting through the Green Card queue (Nice, 2024).⁶

The issues described above have not gone unnoticed by foreign students, scholars, and governments. Talent recruitment programs operated by many U.S. allies date to the mid-2010s, highlighting the fierce competition for STEM talent beginning around this time (Grove, 2024; Stephan et al., 2015). International talent are voting with their feet, and there is evidence the attractiveness of the United States has shrunk relative to the rest of the

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⁵ In 2021, the American Community Survey estimated 19 percent of all U.S. STEM workers to be foreign-born. However, the 2021 National Survey of College Graduates, which uses a different occupation classification, estimated 23 percent of all U.S. STEM workers to be foreign-born. See https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20245/assets/nsb20245.pdf.

⁶ The committee notes the existence of guidance for employing foreign scientists and engineers at DOD laboratories, centers, and agencies. See https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/g/gu/guidance-for-employing-foreign-citizen-scientists-and-engineers-at-department-of-defense-science-and/ida-d-4786.ashx.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries,⁷ as shown in Figure 2-3. 4.3 million international students were attending institutions of higher education in OECD countries in 2021, with 2.1 million or 49 percent of these students studying in a European OECD country and 833,000 or 19 percent of these students studying in the United States (OECD, 2023a). While international enrollment in U.S. colleges and universities has slowed since 2015, other OECD countries have aggressively competed for international students (Stephan et al., 2016). According to OECD data, the share of international students inbound to OECD countries who enroll in the United States has fallen since 2016, as shown in Figure 2-3. Other OECD countries, such as Canada and Germany, are competing actively for talent and have managed to expand their share of international students, cutting into the U.S. share. For example, while the United States managed to increase total enrollment of international students by 8 percent from 2013 to 2021, Germany increased its enrollment by 109 percent, not including students from the United States.

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⁷ The 38 OECD member countries are Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

the United States’ continued technological leadership, with democratic values at the forefront. The United States also must recognize that there is heterogeneity in need across diverse STEM labor markets depending on field and sector (Xue and Larson, 2015). Subsequent chapters address the ways in which the United States and other countries compete for talent. However, given the attention directed toward Chinese talent programs in particular, this report first provides background on the history of U.S.-China cooperation in science and technology (S&T), the rise of China as a science and technology power, talent flows between China and the United States and other countries, and U.S. government actions by the current and previous administrations.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF CHINA-U.S. COOPERATION IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Although the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was launched in 1966 under the joint sponsorship of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Science Research Council, scientific collaboration between the United States and China was extremely limited in scale and scope prior to the signing of a bilateral S&T cooperation agreement in 1979 (Millwood, 2021; Smith, 1998). The cooperative relationship began in earnest with the rise to power of Deng Xiaoping and the announcement of China’s “Four Modernizations” to include S&T. Subsequently, China’s government sought out relationships and signed S&T agreements with European nations as well as with the United States during the 1970s. China’s S&T agreements had previously been limited to a handful of eastern European communist countries, including Hungary and Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union (Wagner and Simon, 2023).⁸

Since establishing diplomatic relations and the signing of the U.S.-China S&T Cooperation Agreement in January 1979, abundant research collaborations and student exchanges have taken place between the two countries (Nature, 2024). The nations became each other’s biggest research partner, and more than 3 million Chinese students have studied in the United States over the last 45 years (Crow, 2022; Nature, 2024; U.S.-China Education Trust, n.d.). Research collaborations with China were

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⁸ S&T agreements between China and these nations were signed during the 1950s.

encouraged by multiple sectors, with the U.S. government, universities, and industry all seeking to strengthen ties and leverage the expertise of Chinese scientists, engineers, and technologists (Crow, 2022). For example, the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Centers promoted both academic and industrial collaborations in service of developing clean technologies and strategies applicable worldwide (Sandalow, 2010).

Many U.S. institutions established formal research agreements with Chinese institutions, with some U.S. colleges and universities initiating physical presences (joint venture universities) and degree programs (joint venture programs) in China (Cao, 2021; Diamond and Schell, 2019; Yin, 2023). Confucius Institutes, Chinese government-funded language and culture centers, were located on more than 100 American campuses during the late 2000s and 2010s (Diamond and Schell, 2019; NASEM, 2023b). These were seen by some universities as a way to meet student interest in Chinese language instruction, and a sign of their international stature, enabling the growth of academic and research partnerships (Diamond and Schell, 2019; NASEM, 2023b).⁹ These endeavors, along with private-sector efforts such as journals with specific outreach to and editors assigned to China, aimed to increase the quality of Chinese science and to inculcate Western research standards and values. In some cases, talent programs were considered as a positive way to accomplish this.

A paradigm shift occurred when Xi Jinping came to power in China in 2012 (Council on Foreign Relations, 2023). Xi made clear through the Chinese Communist Party’s Five-Year Plans and more broadly that “achieving superiority in science and technology is central to his vision of Chinese state power” (Lester et al., 2022; U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 2023). He catalyzed a much more aggressive approach to S&T competition with the West, shifting the Chinese Communist Party to the national strategy of “Military-Civil Fusion” (DOS, n.d.a., 2020; Laskai, 2018; Levesque, 2019; O’Connor, 2019; U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 2019b). During Xi’s tenure, China has emerged as a strong and formidable competitor to the United States in S&T as evidenced by publications and patent

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⁹ One key reason for the success of Confucius Institutes is that they filled a pedagogical gap left open by the decreasing resources allocated by the federal government to education in Chinese language (Diamond and Schell, 2019; NASEM, 2023b). American students were interested in learning Chinese, and the Chinese government was willing and able to provide funding and other resources to make this happen. The need for more Chinese language training remains in the post–Confucius Institutes environment.

output (NSB, 2024a, 2024d; Schneider et al., 2023).¹⁰ The nation is quickly approaching the global leading edge of research in many scientific disciplines and critical and emerging technologies, with Chinese advancements matching or exceeding those made by the United States in some fields (Bradsher, 2024; Gaida et al., 2023a, 2023b; Kelly, 2023; Lester et al., 2022; NASEM, 2022b; Schmidt et al., 2020; Tadjdeh, 2020; Takatsuki, 2023; The Economist, 2024a; Toney and Flagg, 2021).¹¹

While Chinese talent recruitment programs were in place prior to 2012, under Xi Jinping these programs were redirected to serve as a mechanism to “facilitate the transfer of technology” in addition to building human capital (Lester et al., 2022; Priestap, 2018; Zwetsloot, 2020). Some of these programs had the ultimate effect of encouraging dishonesty and incentivizing behaviors “inconsistent with scientific values” held by the United States (Lester et al., 2022; Priestap, 2018; U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 2021; U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 2019b; Wray, 2020). A 2019 staff report from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations noted how federal agencies have discovered that talent recruitment plan members “downloaded sensitive electronic research files before leaving to return to China, submitted false information when applying for grant funds, and willfully failed to disclose receiving money from the Chinese government on U.S. grant applications” (U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 2019b).¹² This report also stated that “the U.S. academic community is in the crosshairs of not only foreign competitors contending for the best and brightest but also of foreign nation states that seek to transfer valuable intellectual capital and steal intellectual property. As the academic community looks to the federal government for guidance and direction on mitigating threats, the U.S. government must provide effective, useful, timely, and specific threat information and tools to counter the

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¹⁰ The committee acknowledges that this is not necessarily a result of Xi’s leadership and that foundations built with Western assistance in the preceding decades enabled this emergence as a formidable competitor in STEM fields.

¹¹ The Third Plenum of China’s Communist Party’s Central Committee announced further education and research-related reforms in July 2024, including “accelerating efforts to build world-class universities and in-demand academic disciplines” and implementing “a national strategy for cultivating top talents” (Bradsher, 2024; Wang, 2024).

¹² The Hoover Institution’s report China’s Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance notes that “[o]ne of the most glaring factors that facilitates IP theft is the fact that recipients of Chinese funding programs, such as the Thousand Talents Program…, routinely do not declare their work in China” (Diamond and Schell, 2019).

threats” (U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 2019b). As such efforts will require a better understanding of the landscape of higher education and scientific research in the PRC, continuing to develop U.S. citizens proficient in Mandarin and to engage with PRC researchers and colleagues is essential to their effectiveness in improving research security (Haupt and Lee, 2023; Lee and Haupt, 2020; Mervis, 2024b; Mui, 2024; Nature, 2024; Richburg, 2024; Silver, 2020; Truex, 2024).¹³

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) launched the China Initiative during the Trump administration in 2018 with the objective of “countering Chinese national security threats” and reinforcing the President’s national security strategy (DOJ, 2021). This was in response to “malign” activities China carried out, including putting in place programs aimed at encouraging Chinese science and engineering (S&E) students to master technologies that may later become critical to key military systems, as well as to growing concern regarding “foreign influence” on American universities (OTMP, 2018). Two components of the China Initiative called for (1) developing an “enforcement strategy concerning nontraditional collectors (e.g., researchers in labs, universities, and the defense industrial base) that are being coopted into transferring technology contrary to U.S. interests”; and (2) educating “colleges and universities about potential threats to academic freedom and open discourse from influence efforts on campus” (Abdelhady, 2019; DOJ, 2021).

The Biden administration ended the China Initiative in 2022 (Aloe and Guo, 2022; Gerstein, 2022a). While brief in duration, the effort had many indelible effects on academia and the research enterprise writ large, including

• fostering a period of intense focus on academia, even with few successful prosecutions and convictions, largely for offenses other than intellectual property (IP)-related issues;
• creating a climate of fear for Asian American and Pacific Islander researchers and those of Chinese descent in particular (Xie et al., 2023);

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¹³ The version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 (NDAA; H.R. 8070, 118th Cong. [2023–2024]) passed by the House of Representatives contains a provision that prohibits DOD from funding any U.S. university that has a research collaboration with China. At publication in August 2024, it is unclear whether this language will be included in the final version of the NDAA. See https://www.science.org/content/article/house-defense-bill-would-block-u-s-research-collaborations-china.

from about 40,000 cooperating authors in 2000 to more than 1 million in 2022.¹⁴ Between 1986 and 1997, Chinese-U.S. papers made up about 2.5 percent of U.S. internationally cooperative papers, but this percentage rose to more than 11 percent by 2008 and to 21 percent in 2022.

China boasts a larger population of scientists and engineers and has more registered patents than any other country. According to some quality metrics, China outperformed both the EU and the United States in 2022 in the top 1 percent of the most highly cited works (those considered to be noteworthy by others), although analyses differ depending on the commercial database utilized (Brainard and Normile, 2022; NISTEP, 2022; NSB, 2024d; Wagner et al., 2022). Cooperative papers between the

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¹⁴ The American Academy of Arts & Sciences states that “much of the coauthoring is a consequence of Chinese researchers having performed their doctoral studies and/or postdoctoral research in the United States” (American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2020).

United States and China command even greater citation attention from the scientific community, suggesting that both nations benefit from the collaborations.

The global COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a drop in the output of scientific publications in many places around the world, although not in China. The EU and United Kingdom output remained about the same between 2021 and 2022, while China’s output grew as it has year-on-year for over a decade. China’s contributions to article counts in 2022 accounted for 27 percent of the world total, higher now than the United States’ 20 percent share and equal to that of the EU (including the United Kingdom in the historical data). China’s share of global scientific publication output grew from 16 percent in 2016 to 27 percent in 2022, while the U.S. share dropped from 23 percent in 2016 to 20 percent in 2022 (see Table 2-1). Where U.S. collaborations in Europe are flat, China-EU cooperation has increased by 60 percent since 2016 (see Figure 2-6) (Wagner and Cai, 2022a).

U.S.-China collaboration also dropped in 2022 and 2023, part of the reduced engagement that began before the pandemic, with China’s share of international collaborations dropping since 2018 and most steeply with the United States at 24 percent (Wagner, 2024a; Wagner and Cai, 2022b). Assuming a 2- to 4-year lag between initiation of research and published results, the drop in U.S.-China collaboration likely began around 2018.

Although China’s rise in S&T has been exceptional, it has followed some of the patterns of development common across the history of nations growing a science system (Cao et al., 2020; NASEM, 2010). With few exceptions, most nations copy the scientific leaders of the day as they build institutional structures, choose areas of S&T investment, and develop research and experimentation programs. These commonalities of policy action include changes to patent and IP law and protection that provide incentives for invention and innovation. It further includes sending out emissaries to study the science system in leading nations and bringing back knowledge physically or linking back at a distance through collaborative research. Domestically, most nations develop deliberate procurement policies to purchase the results of early innovation, regardless of quality, as a common strategy. Beyond these familiar patterns, China’s rapid rise also was fueled by direct transfers of technology by U.S. multinational corporations eager to reduce production costs and access the large, protected Chinese market, along with the deployment by the Chinese government of industrial policies at unprecedented scales (Bateman, 2022; Brown and Singh,

total R&D spending, although the government provides significant direct and indirect subsidies (Dou, 2023; NSB, 2022b).¹⁵ The government reports spending about 25 percent of total R&D, although these figures cannot be validated independently.¹⁶ Furthermore, China uses different counting and reporting methods from OECD countries. Should these figures be accurate, China’s corporations would be outpacing the OECD average of a 67/33 corporate/government split in R&D spending.

Sino-Soviet Cold War Collaboration

Prior to the dramatic rise of Chinese S&T publication output (see Figure 2-5), China had a brief but intense cooperative relationship with Russia and other Soviet member states before the late 1970s. In 1955, the Soviet Union and China signed a joint diplomatic agreement to cooperate in S&T, and with it, they established a Joint Commission on S&T Cooperation, which met at least once a year to discuss and coordinate cooperative activities. Many exchanges and cooperative activities occurred as a result of the relationship, which along with the “series of triangular U.S.-Soviet-Chinese geopolitical interactions with alternating periods of alliance and hostility” reshaped China’s role in the global scientific enterprise (Wang, 2014).

China took advantage of this diplomatic relationship to learn from and emulate the Soviet science system. The Soviet model emphasized the role of centralized institutions, with less emphasis given to university research than is the case in Europe or North America. The Soviet model motivated China to establish several key scientific research institutions, including the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), founded in 1949. CAS remains an important and prestigious institution and the largest research organization in China, with more than 100 institutes, 3 universities, and 69,000 full-time employees (Global Times, 2023; Leung and Sharma, 2022; Suttmeier et al., 2006). CAS trains more than 79,000 graduate students per year

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¹⁵ The Rhodium Group has written further on sources of S&T funding in China. See https://rhg.com/research/spread-thin-chinas-science-and-technology-spending-in-an-economic-slowdown/.

¹⁶ The Chinese National Bureau of Statistics reported that the Chinese government’s investment in R&D surpassed 3 trillion yuan ($419.2 billion USD in 2024) in 2022 (Luong, 2024; Xinhua News Agency, 2003). USD calculated using an exchange rate of 1 USD = 7.156 RMB as of August 6, 2024. See https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1&From=USD&To=CNY.

enrolled in its institutes and universities, which include the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Science and Technology of China, and the Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Global Times, 2023; Leung and Sharma, 2022; Suttmeier et al., 2006).

The Soviet Union provided China with thousands of visiting scientists and engineers who helped with economic development and military modernization. One source suggested that more than 11,000 Soviet specialists were on site in Chinese factories in 1959 (Frieman, 1989). Chinese students traveled to the Soviet Union to study technical subjects, and between 1948 and 1963, China sent nearly 8,000 students to study in the Soviet Union, which constituted close to 80 percent of China’s students studying abroad (McGuire, 2010). Most Chinese students sent to the Soviet Union had attended college in China and were chosen for overseas study based upon top academic achievement. China established a school in Beijing to teach students Russian and mathematics before proceeding to study and train in Soviet institutions. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of these students studied technical subjects and business, much like the Chinese students who traveled to the West in the 1980s and 1990s.

The two countries cooperated on several major scientific and technological projects, such as the development of China’s nuclear weapons program¹⁷ and its first satellite. The Soviets also helped China develop its aerospace industry by providing the plans and parts for the MiG-15 fighter jet and training Chinese engineers to build military aircraft. The Soviets provided aid to help China develop its heavy industry sector, including its steel and machine-building industries.

Soviet-Chinese diplomatic and political tensions arose beginning in 1960, resulting in the removal from China of most Soviet experts along with their blueprints, plans, and technical libraries (Bernstein and Li, 2010). Unlike China’s experience in the West, none of China’s scientists or engineers remained in the Soviet Union. China’s cooperative educational program with the Soviet Union ended in 1967 due to ideological conflicts, territorial disputes, and political differences.

Soviet-Chinese cooperation played a significant role in the early development of China’s S&T enterprise. It helped China acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to build its own indigenous S&T capabilities. Technical

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¹⁷ China’s missile program was developed by U.S.-trained scientist Qian Xuesen, whose profile is in Appendix F. Qian is an early case of China realizing the “value and importance of transferring the intellectual capital of overseas technical experts” (Stoff, 2021).

literature, plans, education, training, sales of parts, the purchase of technical goods, and joint projects from the Soviet Union all aided China as it developed a scientific system. China provided the Soviet Union with raw materials in exchange for technology, training, and education, which concerned Chinese officials who worried they were not gaining enough technical knowledge from the arrangement. Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976 disrupted, but did not completely obliterate, these capabilities and skills.

THE FLOW OF CHINESE TALENT TO AND FROM THE UNITED STATES

Deng Xiaoping, at the time Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, declared in June 1978 that “thousands, or even tens of thousands, [of students] should be sent abroad rather than only a handful” (China Net Education Channel, 2009; Diamond and Schell, 2019; Li, 2005; Strider, 2022).¹⁸ While China and the United States were actively negotiating a bilateral S&T agreement in July 1978, White House Science Advisor Frank Press met with Chinese counterparts to negotiate student exchange opportunities. In October 1978, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced an accord signed in China between 11 Chinese officials and scholars and the United States, negotiated as part of a 2-week visit sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). At the opening of the bilateral relationship, 500 to 700 students were expected to enroll in U.S. universities. In 1980, 2,770 arrived, with numbers increasing every year thereafter (Guo, 2003; Luo, 2013; Ma, 2014; Snyder and Hoffman, 1992; Sun, 1995; Yan and Berliner, 2016; Zhao, 1996). Figure 2-7 shows the number of students visiting the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.

Initially, the U.S.-China educational exchange agreement was meant to apply to graduate students, but undergraduate students joined the flow to the United States as early as 1980. The number of Chinese undergraduate students coming to the United States increased steadily in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1980, there were 2,770 Chinese students enrolled in institutions of higher education in the United States (Guo,

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¹⁸ The Hoover Institution’s report China’s Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance notes that since the late 1970s, government authorities in the PRC “have seen American universities as integral to China’s economic and scientific development” (Diamond and Schell, 2019).

were 4 percent less likely to stay in the United States postgraduation (Flynn et al., 2024).

The growth in the number of Chinese students traveling to study in the United States over the past four decades is well documented. The numbers increased almost every year since 1980, although the rate of growth slowed over time and, in a few cases, fell because of economic slowdowns in the economy. Funding for Chinese students studying in the United States at all degree levels typically comes from self-financing (personal and family funding); Chinese government funding, including scholarships from the China Scholarship Council; U.S. government funding, including the Fulbright Program as well as university scholarships, research and teaching assistantships, and financial aid; and other sources, including scholarships from private companies, nongovernmental organizations, and foundations (Diamond and Schell, 2019; IIE, 2023c; Luo, 2024; Shao, 2014; US-China Education Trust, n.d.; Zhu, 2018).¹⁹ It is important to note that many undergraduate students are funded by the first two sources on this list (self-financing and Chinese government funding). Students pursuing advanced degrees in STEM fields, especially at the Ph.D. level, are typically funded by sources of research support provided to their institutions, including from the U.S. government in the form of research grants and contracts. The universities that have welcomed the greatest number of Chinese students are presented in Figure 2-9.

Visiting Scholars and Research Productivity

In addition to students, Chinese-educated researchers come to the United States to study and work as visiting scholars, postdoctoral researchers, and other roles. These scholars have been educated in China and come to the United States for a period of time to collaborate. Estimates based on studies by the China Scholarship Council suggest about 10,000 per year come to the United States, funded mainly by the Chinese government but also by private sources and the U.S. government, such as the Fulbright Program (see Box 2-2).²⁰ These scholars are not spread evenly by state, with California,

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¹⁹ Some examples of foundations providing scholarships to Chinese students include the Ford Foundation, the Asia Foundation, and the Li Ka Shing Foundation.

²⁰ The U.S.-China Fulbright Program was suspended by the U.S. government in 2020. See https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/07/17/2020-15646/the-presidents-executive-order-on-hong-kong-normalization and https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/07/16/trump-targets-fulbright-china-hong-kong.

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²¹ Gang Chen, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, discovered a new semiconductor material that was named one of Physics World’s Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2022. See https://physicsworld.com/a/physics-world-reveals-its-top-10-breakthroughs-of-the-year-for-2022/.

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²² NeurIPS is a prominent AI and machine learning conference that tens of thousands of researchers from academia and industry attend annually. See https://neurips.cc/.

prejudice, or discrimination” (Prabhakar, 2024b).²³ NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli released a statement supporting Asian American, Asian immigrant, and Asian research colleagues in August 2024, noting these individuals’ “extraordinary contributions to advancing science” and emphasizing that “discrimination and harassment are unacceptable” (NIH, 2024b). The statement also announced measures to repair relationships with the Asian American community and to clarify existing research security policies in the wake of the China Initiative (Mervis, 2024c).

However, recent legislative actions at the federal and state levels have intensified the fear scientists of Chinese descent are experiencing. The House of Representatives’ FY 2024 appropriations bill, H.R. 5893 (118th Congress, 2023–2024), had a significant budget for reinstating the China Initiative. Through the joint effort of 50 organizations led by AASF and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, the explanatory statement released on March 3, 2024, for the FY 2024 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act was revised with the reinstatement language of the controversial China Initiative being removed. The House passed the spending bill without this language. On May 22, 2024, the House Judiciary Committee held a markup vote on H.R. 1398 (118th Congress, 2023–2024), the Protect America’s Innovation and Economic Security from CCP Act, which would reestablish the China Initiative under a new name, the CCP Initiative (U.S. House Judiciary Committee, 2024). The passage of such a bill would likely have substantial consequences, especially for Asian American scholars, and a significant influence on the U.S. global talent competition.

Multiple states have passed land bills to prohibit Chinese immigrants from acquiring real estate. The state of Florida has gone beyond this, passing a law in May 2023 that bars Chinese students from accessing academic labs (Florida State Senate, 2023). This law prohibits Florida’s 12 public colleges and universities from accepting money from or partnering with entities in China or other designated “countries of concern,” and offering research contracts to individuals from such countries (Mervis, 2023a). According to one report, exceptions to these prohibitions are allowed only when the

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²³ The earlier National Security Presidential Memorandum 33 (NSPM-33) implementation guidance from January 2022 contains a requirement that “[a]gencies must implement NSPM-33 provisions and related requirements in a nondiscriminatory manner that does not stigmatize or treat unfairly members of the research community, including members of ethnic or racial minority groups” (JCORE, 2022). See https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/010422-NSPM-33-Implementation-Guidance.pdf.

Board of Governors overseeing higher education in the state decides that the interaction is not detrimental to the safety or security of the United States or its residents (Qin, 2023). Waivers would be granted on a case-by-case basis for those seeking a research position as a graduate assistant or postdoc (Mervis, 2023a; Qin, 2023). Two University of Florida students and a faculty member, with backing from the American Civil Liberties Union, are currently challenging the validity of this law in court (Kumar, 2024).

International collaboration has become more challenging. Papers coauthored by researchers in the United States and China dropped by up to 25 percent in recent years (Wagner, 2024a; Wagner and Cai, 2022b). There is widespread fear and confusion among both Chinese and non-Chinese researchers regarding what constitutes permissible and impermissible activities in international collaboration, particularly for collaborations with researchers in China. Faculty members are experiencing pressure to disengage from both long-standing and new international collaborations crucial to the goals of institutions and federal agencies (Nature, 2021). What was previously one of the most vibrant, productive, and successful channels of global scientific cooperation is now dwindling rapidly (American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2021).

U.S. Customs and Border Protection frequently stops and interrogates Chinese American scientists when they return from overseas trips (Fischer, 2023). Numerous students and postdoctoral fellows have faced intimidation and have been detained or deported as they try to enter the United States to begin or continue their training (Gewin, 2024; Prasso, 2024). There is a pressing need to develop transparent federal international travel policies and to improve coordination between the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security on the risk factors determining admissibility of students and scholars from China and other countries of concern. Furthermore, there is a need for the U.S. government to “engage with university and Asian-American groups to limit [the] inadvertent harm of policies or enforcement actions on academic researchers” (DHS, 2024a).

International students and scholars also may encounter pressures to act on behalf of their home country or be subject to political pressures that may be considered transnational repression. Transnational repression refers to the practice by which individuals or groups are targeted by authoritarian regimes beyond their borders, often through extrajudicial means and with the intent of suppressing dissent, silencing opposition, or punishing perceived threats to their power (DHS, 2024a; Gorokhovskaia and Vaughan, 2024). This can take the form of harassment, intimidation, surveillance,

abduction, unlawful deportation, and even assassination (DHS, 2024a; Gorokhovskaia and Vaughan, 2024).

Transnational repression is an emerging and not yet fully understood facet of foreign malign influence—and a national security concern—that universities should be aware of when welcoming and supporting international students and scholars (DHS, 2024a). There are serious implications for academic freedom and for freedom of expression of targeted students and scholars (DHS, 2024a; Gorokhovskaia and Vaughan, 2024; Mandour, 2022).

THE CURRENT GEOPOLITICAL LANDSCAPE

The committee notes this report is being released in August 2024, in the lead up to the November 2024 presidential election. It is expected that congressional focus on national security concerns over China will intensify as 2024 continues, particularly given the ongoing work of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (Goldstein, 2024; Tollefson et al., 2024). The Select Committee released RESET, PREVENT, BUILD: A Strategy to Win America’s Economic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party, a report containing 150 policy recommendations, in December 2023 (U.S. Select Committee on the CCP, 2023). The report contains a key finding that “the PRC exploits the openness of the U.S. research environment to steal U.S. IP and transfer technology to advance its economic and security interests to the detriment of the United States,” which is tied to report Recommendation 4, “Strengthen U.S. research security and defend against malign talent recruitment,” and eight specific policy actions affecting academia and other sectors (U.S. Select Committee on the CCP, 2023). This report also notes that the United States “must bolster its unique advantages in technological development by funding research, incentivizing innovation, and attracting global talent in critical areas” (U.S. Select Committee on the CCP, 2023).

The Biden administration has adopted a bundle of international STEM talent policies designed to provide more certainty and predictability for foreign-born “STEM scholars, students, researchers and experts to contribute to innovation and job creation efforts across America” (White House, 2022). These policy-level actions by the Departments of Homeland Security and State are pursuant to agency regulations under current authorities Congress has already provided federal departments and agencies. While these actions do not replace congressional action to modernize the

governing immigration statute, such administrative actions could be consequential, at least in the aggregate. Monitoring the full implementation of such existing authorities at DHS and the State Department, and the effects thereof, could be invaluable in attracting and retaining international scientists, technologists, and engineers (Rampell, 2022; Tollefson et al., 2024).

International STEM talent policies the Biden administration has announced include the following:

• Department of State:
  • Early-Career STEM Research Initiative, allowing foreign-born STEM experts, at all academic levels, to come to the United States to conduct and participate in STEM R&D efforts, hosted by industry on J-1 visas (Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, n.d.a).²⁴
  • Expanding academic training for STEM graduates on J-1 visas, permitting up to 3 years of postcompletion employment authorization for international students earning STEM degrees in the United States on J-1 exchange visitor visas, on par with students with F-1 visas (Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, n.d.c).²⁵
• Department of Homeland Security:
  • Update the designated fields list for postcompletion STEM Optional Practical Training in both 2022 (adding 22 fields) and 2023 (adding 8 fields), to reflect new, largely multi-disciplinary fields of study, expanding the STEM fields in which international students may remain in the United States and work, whether in industry, government, or academia, after earning their degree (DHS, 2022a, 2023c).
  • Policy guidance on O-1 visas,²⁶ providing written guidance for the first time since the O-1A category was created by

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²⁴ The J-1 exchange visitor visa is for educational and cultural exchange programs designated by the Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

²⁵ The F-1 academic student visa allows an individual to enter the United States as a full-time student at an accredited college, university, seminary, conservatory, academic high school, elementary school, or other academic institution or in a language training program.

²⁶ The O-1 nonimmigrant visa is for an individual who possesses extraordinary ability in the sciences, education, business, or athletics (O-1A), or in arts, including the motion picture or television industry (O-1B), and has been recognized nationally or internationally for those achievements. See https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-with-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement.

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²⁷ The current U.S. government list of critical and emerging technologies is available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Critical-and-Emerging-Technologies-List-2024-Update.pdf.

²⁸ The U.S. government “Multi-Agency Research and Development Priorities for the FY 2025 Budget” memorandum is available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/FY2025-OMB-OSTP-RD-Budget-Priorities-Memo.pdf.

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²⁹ The H-1B is a temporary (nonimmigrant) visa category that allows employers to petition for highly educated foreign professionals to work in “specialty occupations” that require at least a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent. Jobs in fields such as mathematics, engineering, technology, and medical sciences often qualify. Typically, the initial duration of an H-1B visa classification is 3 years, which may be extended for a maximum of 6 years.