South China Morning Post
Advertisement
Advertisement
Mourners pay tribute to China’s “father of rocketry” Qian Xuesen in his Hangzhou hometown in 2009, after his death at the age of 98. Qian was an MIT-educated Caltech professor and a US permanent resident when persecution drove him back to China. Photo: Xinhua
Opinion
Winston Mok
Winston Mok

Tighter US visas and growing distrust of Chinese researchers will only boost China’s talent pool, at America’s expense

  • US visa restrictions provide an opportunity for Beijing to promote a more diversified, balanced and collaborative approach to higher education. McCarthy-era suspicion will simply drive Chinese academics home, thus enriching China’s tech programme
Winston Mok
Winston Mok
Why you can trust SCMP
Despite US President Donald Trump’s recent reassurance at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, the United States has tightened its visa restrictions on Chinese students and scholars. In arts, social sciences and business courses, full-fee paying Chinese students remain welcome. But, in selected technical fields where China is seen as a rising competitor, is the US closing the door on Chinese students?
Since China started economic reforms in 1978, almost 6 million have studied overseas and 3.7 million have returned to contribute as professors, engineers, managers and company founders. By 2025, with more than half a million returning every year, the number of foreign-educated returnees in China will be as large as Hong Kong’s population.

This rapidly expanding pool will play increasingly important roles in China’s next stage of economic development. Restrictive US policies cannot be allowed to hamper the quality of world-class international higher education accessible to China. Indeed, Beijing could counter this with several measures.

First, diversify away from US universities. American universities have some of the best engineering programmes in the world, and 80 per cent of Chinese students looking at overseas education still choose English-speaking countries. But seven of the world’s top 10 universities for engineering and technology are not American, and some of the strongest university engineering programmes are in Switzerland, Germany, Japan and South Korea, regions already attracting more Chinese students in recent years.

Beijing could grant more scholarships for graduate programmes in non-English languages and encourage science and engineering students preparing for further study or joint research to learn a second foreign language, such as German, Japanese or Korean.

Second, encourage greater use of quality online degree programmes. Many US universities, including Columbia University, University of California, Los Angeles, and the Georgia Institute of Technology offer excellent online master’s programmes in engineering.

Third, increase tie-ups with overseas universities to set up campuses in China. Already, Georgia Tech operates a graduate programme in Shenzhen, while the Israel Institute of Technology, better known as Technion, has a campus in Shantou. Over time, China-based transnational education will play a key role in helping to meet the insatiable demand for international higher education in China – particularly given the tremendous advantage of keeping living expenses local.

Fourth, establish more collaborative research programmes at the doctorate level and beyond. Many foreign programmes in China are teaching-oriented; more research-oriented projects are needed, such as at Technion’s Guangdong campus. Sino-foreign research collaborations may also be established outside China, such as in Europe, Australia and other parts of Asia.

Finally, upgrade university teaching staff to cope with China’s growing need for more world-class universities. Including Hong Kong and Taiwan, China has seven universities among the top 50 in engineering and technology. But that is not much to brag about when tiny Singapore has two in the top 10.

How has Singapore done it? Its universities offer top dollar for their academics, attracting high-calibre Western-trained scholars, many born in China. China, with its vast financial resources and talent pool, has no reason not to replicate the Singapore experience by offering internationally competitive academic salaries in its engineering programmes.

Since Qing officials sent 120 children to the US for education, returnees have made their mark in China. Among the 120 were China’s first premier Tang Shaoyi and Tang Guoan, president of Tsinghua College, the predecessor to Tsinghua University. In the 1950s, returnees included Qian Xuesen, China’s “father of rocketry”, who trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and California Institute of Technology.
Qian Xuesen returned to China and was well rewarded for his talent. Photo: Xinhua

However, these early returns were somewhat involuntary. Qing officials prematurely terminated the US education of many of the 120 amid concerns about their “excessive” Westernisation. In Qian’s case, McCarthy-era persecution led to the stripping of his security clearances and restricted him from his research as a Caltech professor.

Qian, then a US permanent resident, may well have remained in the US but instead left for China, helping the country’s defence programme achieve its accelerated leaps. The US Navy secretary at the time, Dan Kimball, who knew Qian personally, lamented the stupidity of the US in forcing Qian out.

US higher education has benefited from drawing the best and brightest from around the world. This now includes China, a major source of PhD students for top US universities. Washington’s restrictive measures may end up redirecting Chinese talent and undermining its own universities. Foreign-born MIT president Leo Rafael Reif has cautioned that US attempts to lock out China from its higher education may merely lock the US into mediocrity.

Chinese parents are perhaps still enamoured with US higher education. But just as the US is diversifying from China as a manufacturing source, Chinese students should be weaned from their over-reliance on US higher education. For Chinese students to obtain the best learning from the world, a more diversified, balanced and collaborative approach should be promoted by Beijing.

It is too late for the US to impede China’s technological progress through restrictive education policies; in fact, it may have the opposite effect. In an environment that carries echoes of the McCarthy era, where scientists and engineers of Chinese descent face unfair suspicion, more may choose to leave and enrich China’s universities instead. US restrictions may end up providing the impetus for China’s advancement towards a broader-based and internationally integrated higher-education system.

Winston Mok, a private investor, was previously a private equity investor

 

Post