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Looking ahead, there is still considerable uncertainty about whether the downward trend of China studying in the United States will continue | Source: pixabay.com
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Due to various reasons, the number of Chinese students studying in the United States fell for the first time in the 2020/21 school year after decades of continuous growth. If the number of graduate students is considered alone, it will also drop from nearly 130,000 to less than 100,000 in 2020, a drop of 24%. The decrease in international students and researchers from China will not have a substantial impact on the quality of scientific research in the United States. In the short term, the development of China's science needs to introduce foreign talents. Looking ahead, there is still considerable uncertainty as to whether the downward trend of China studying in the United States will continue.
Written by | Di Lihui
Editor | Qian Wei
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"I haven't returned to China for four years." Wang Xia talked about her recent situation.
Four years ago, the author met several students, including Wang Xia, because of writing an article about undergraduate education. At that time, they had just graduated from a top university in China and were about to go to the United States to pursue a doctorate degree.
In June 2018, the United States shortened the visa for Chinese students studying for certain science and engineering majors, and changed it from the previous five years to one year. In November of that year, the US Department of Justice launched the "China Action Plan" (China initiative) . More and more scientists, most of whom are Chinese professors, were deprived of funds, forced retirement, investigated, prosecuted, and sent to prison... International students from China, together with professors, were described by Lei (Christopher Wray) as a "non-traditional intelligence collector." The then-US President Trump said that students from China were "almost all spies."
At that time, I was worried that the United States would also reject these outstanding students. Fortunately, they all got visas successfully. But things haven't ended here.
Figure 1 Political interference coupled with the epidemic, the number of Chinese students studying in the United States fell for the first time in the 2020/21 school year after decades of continuous growth, from 372,532 in the previous year to 317,299 | Data source: Open Doors
020, turning point?
Two years later, in 2020, Presidential Order No. 10043 signed by Trump came into effect, prohibiting some Chinese graduate students and scholars from obtaining visas. According to paper, they "implement or support China's military-civilian integration strategy."
To date, there is no exact number for how many people have been affected by this ban.
A report from Georgetown University in the United States assumes that 11 Chinese universities, (including the "Seven Defence Sons") , will be "focused on". Taking into account some other factors, the author estimates that the number of people affected each year is 3,000 to 5,000, accounting for 16% to 27% of all Chinese students studying in science and engineering in the United States each year. The report does not consider postdoctoral fellows, visiting scholars, and those who are sent to study in .
And the US government said that the number of international students affected by the ban accounts for only 1%. This may be a conclusion based on the total number of Chinese students in the United States. According to Open Doors, this figure historically exceeded 370,000 in the 2019/20 academic year. It should be noted that of these 370,000, about 150,000 are undergraduates, 17,000 are not obtained, and only about 130,000 are graduate students. There are about 76,000 people studying science and engineering at the 130,000 high school. Given that Presidential Order No. 10043 appears to have "retrospective" effect, some of these 76,000 people may also be affected.
"There are three aspects of visa restrictions on Chinese students and scholars going to the United States: the first is for high-level talents, mainly doctoral students and visiting scholars, which is in line with China's action plan; the second is for sensitive majors, simply put, science and engineering; the third is for government-study study abroad. If these three conditions are consistent, you will most likely be rejected. This is for all Chinese scholars and universities. In addition, there is also a list of sanctions for some so-called " military-civilian integration universities." Chen Zhiwen, editor-in-chief of China Education Online , told Intellectuals.
According to the information released by the China National Scholarship Fund Management Committee, by 2016, the number of people sent by the state government to study abroad in the year of public study abroad has exceeded 30,000. Whether there has been a decline in recent years is unknown due to the lack of data.
Due to the ambiguity and opacity of the policy, observers can only look for rejected "clues" from the cases. Some reports show that even non-scientific and engineering colleges and universities may be rejected.
The ambiguity expressed in the United States Presidential Decree No. 10043 has been criticized as "carpet bombing" rather than "scalpel-like precision strikes." The above report believes that keeping ambiguity may be intentional, so that relevant institutions can implement it more "flexible"; at the same time, the vague wording conceals policy disputes and can also prevent criticism and supervision from others.
What made studying abroad "injury" in 2020 also the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic, and the United States subsequently closed its application for a study abroad visa in China. Thirteen months later, the United States restarted its study visa in the United States in May 2021. Secretary of State Blinken said at the time that 100,000 Chinese student visas were processed within four months.
However, after a long wait, the result of some people waiting for is "rejection". Almost from June 2021, more than 500 Chinese students jointly wrote a letter to the Chinese Embassy in the United States, reporting that their visa application for studying in the United States was denied, and this matter was widely reported by major media.
is not surprising. After decades of continuous growth, the number of Chinese students studying in the United States fell for the first time in the 2020/21 school year, from 372,532 in the previous year to 317,299 (according to Open Doors) .
Even if the number of graduate students is considered alone, it dropped from nearly 130,000 to less than 100,000 in 2020, a drop of 24%; if it is only counted as science and engineering, it will drop by 20%. Other countries, including India, also experienced a decline in (down about 23% and 24% respectively) . China and India account for about 70% of all international students studying in the United States. (according to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics)
By summarizing the data on going abroad for graduates from 10 universities in China (see Appendix 1) , "Intellectuals" found that 2020 is also a turning point. The proportion of studying abroad in almost all schools has declined, and the proportion of going to the United States has also declined. Some schools, such as , Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, have dropped by about 15 percentage points. In some schools, the United States is no longer the preferred destination for study abroad (see Appendix 2) . In Sichuan University , Nanjing University of Science and Technology , Harbin University of Engineering , University of Electronic Science and Technology , and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, other countries represented by the United Kingdom have surpassed the United States and become the preferred destination for studying abroad. (these universities are all in the "entity list")
At the same time, data from British Council shows that the number of undergraduate and graduate students in the UK has increased year by year, reaching nearly 60,000 and 90,000 in the 2019/20 academic year (see attached figure 1) . This result is unusual considering that there are fewer universities in other countries than in the United States.
This year, the new crown epidemic in the United States was under control and the border was open, which is a positive factor for studying in the United States.But as far as Chinese students are concerned, the Biden administration does not seem to intend to abolish the visa ban, and the impact of the political environment remains. There is still considerable uncertainty about whether the downward trend of studying in the United States will continue this year and even later. What impact does
have on the United States?
The number of Chinese students studying in the United States has decreased, and the first impact on the funds of some American schools. According to media reports, the amount of economic activities generated by 370,000 Chinese students in the United States through paying tuition and other fees reached US$14 billion.
"Now, it is not enough to be a postdoctoral fellow or visiting scholar in the United States to receive funding from the Chinese government." Zhao Ming, a professor engaged in life science research in the United States, said, "If you bring money, you are a spy, and if you don't bring money, you are not a spy. This is a very ridiculous thing. In fact, the United States has taken a lot of advantages in China in the past. It is very stupid not to have free labor."
Zhao Ming told Intellectuals that in the past two years, some laboratories have "obviously not recruiting postdoctoral fellows"; at the same time, "scarcity is precious", and postdoctoral fellows from China have also become much higher.
Another reason why Chinese postdoctoral fellows are unwilling to go to American laboratories is that they cannot hang a domestic unit when they become the first author. Nature magazine reported at the end of last month that in the past three years, the number of authors co-signed by Sino-US research institutions has dropped by more than 20%; the number of papers co-signed by Sino-US research institutions has also declined in 2021.
However, many respondents told Intellectuals that the reduction in Chinese students and researchers has not had any impact on the quality of scientific research in the United States.
According to Wang Liantao, a professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Chicago, the number of applicants for a medium-sized physics department like Zhida is 800 to 900 per year, and one-quarter of the applications come from China. In the final admission of more than 20 graduate students, Chinese account for about 2 to 3. "Good students will still apply to go abroad. We don't have much admission, and from the perspective of doing research, the impact is not very big." He said.
Computer professor Shi Lei in the United States believes that the lack of Chinese students has a big impact on each school - "The top schools actually do not rely on Chinese doctoral students, especially non-Chinese teachers, but are not very dependent. Other schools may rely more on Chinese or Indian students. Chinese students' influence on top schools is not as great as imagined."
Take the American Computer Society PhD thesis Award (ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award) as an example. Among the 117 winners who have been awarded since 1978, only five are Chinese students who have finished undergraduate studies (Xiaoyuan) Tu,1996, Yan Liu,2007, Tengyu Ma,2018, Jiajun Wu,2019, Chuchu Fan,2020) , four of which are honorary awards.
However, Wang Liantao also said that the contribution of Chinese immigration to the United States is obvious to all. "Most Chinese people who come to the United States have received higher education and are high-end talents. Their contributions to the United States are disproportionate to the total number of immigrants," he said.
According to MacroPolo, a think tank headquartered in Chicago , nearly 30% of top AI researchers have received undergraduate degrees in China, but more than half of them continue to study, work and live in the United States. The report also pointed out that the analysis conducted in February 2017 showed that about 90% of Chinese citizens and 87% of Indian citizens who completed the STEM doctoral program in the United States between 2000 and 2015 still live in the United States, while this proportion is 66% of graduates from other countries.
All you can do is wait for
The decrease in Chinese students going to the United States to study for graduate school will undoubtedly benefit other countries and the local talent market in China. But whether China's environment is conducive to the emergence of outstanding talents is still full of questions.More than ten years have passed, "Why can't our school always cultivate outstanding talents?" This "Qian Xuesen's question" is still in his ears.
"There is a breakthrough and we can do this path, but we can do it very well. But you have to say that we will lead from scratch and build a no-man's land. I think it is unlikely at least in the short term. Whether it is the baton or the atmosphere, everyone is used to following. The domestic environment is also more suitable for following, and the efficiency of imitation and innovation is relatively high." Shi Lei said.
In the short term, the development of China's science still requires the introduction of overseas talents. As of 2021, among the 381 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who received higher education after 1977, more than half of them had studied abroad in the academic education stage or postdoctoral stage; from the distribution of overseas study destinations, 42 (accounting for 11.1%) academicians have studied at 2 or more different overseas study destinations. Among them, the United States is the preferred country for scientific researchers, with 137 people.
Despite all kinds of obstacles, studying in the United States is still the choice of many students at present. Even for the 11 schools that are on the "entity list", there is still a certain proportion of the number of students studying in the United States.
Four years have passed, and the author is happy to see that the young people who went out of Wang Xia were as outstanding as ever. Some of them even decided to be an assistant professor at a famous university in the United States before they even formally graduated. Although they did not dare to return to China for four years, and although there were all kinds of noises during this period, the ending was not too frustrating.
Recently, another graduate of a top domestic school that I am familiar with will also go to the United States to study for a postgraduate degree. He said that it has been five or six weeks now, and it may take two months to wait.
Judging from the current situation, all he can do is wait quietly.
(At the request of the interviewer, Wang Xia, Zhao Ming and Shi Lei are pseudonyms in the article)
Attachment 1
Data source: Graduates Employment Quality Reports for Colleges in the Table
Attached Figure 1
Attached Table 2
Data source: Employment quality report of graduates of each university in the table
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References:
.Remco Zwetsloot, Emily Weinstein, Ryan Fedasiuk, "Assessing the Scope of U.S. Visa Restrictions on Chinese Students" (Center for Security and Emerging Technology, February 2021). https://doi.org/10.51593/20200076
.Brunnstrom and Spetalnick, "U.S. Targets Only One Percent.”
.https://www.10043.org/
. The situation of national governments sending overseas study abroad since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/xw_fbh/moe_2069/xwfbh_2017n/xwfb_170301/170301_sfcl/201703/t2 0170301_297674.html
. "Growth Files" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Academician who received higher education after the college entrance examination was resumed in 1977: More than 20% were from prestigious schools, and more than 40% had no overseas study experience, https://news.sciencenet.cn/sbhtmlnews/2021/12/367309.s
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