[seanmcdirmid]

> but a bunch of populist anti-China measures have prevented Chinese STEM talent from naturalizing, so we aren't getting the cream of the crop anymore

I thought it was just the green card quotas, since once you get a GC naturalizing only takes a few years. The quotas are dumb, but are not specifically anti-china.

[alephnerd]

Not GC quotas - the backlog is 2 years now for Chinese nationals

It's EO 10043 [0] that's the blocker.

If you are a Chinese national who is in some way affiliated with tbe Chinese Civil-Military fusion, you cannot get a visa to the US.

This EO is horribly written, as it essentially treats all Chinese universities or programs that get some kind of military funding (even a relatively minor grant) as part of the Civil-Military Fusion, as just about every Chinese STEM program is connected with a State Key Laboratory or the CAS.

It's a Trump era EO that's still enforced.

[0] - https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/06/04/2020-12...

[seanmcdirmid]

I think that only affects Technology institutes that are run by the PLA? Like Beijing Institute of Technology or Harbin institute of technology, but they do not seem to be enforcing it for PKU, Shanghai Jiaotong, or Tsinghua.

The crazy thing is that these are generally lower tier universities in China. What a strange law. I can imagine this making those universities much less popular in future admittances.

[alephnerd]

> PKU, Shanghai Jiaotong, or Tsinghua.

They have State Key Laboratories as affiliated with them as well

> only affects Technology institutes that are run by the PLA

Nope. Any kind of tangentially military funded research (aka almost all of STEM) because of how vague "Civil-Military Fusion" is defined (or not defined in this case)

> What a strange law

Executive Order, not a Law.

> making those universities much less popular in future admittances

Maybe, maybe not. There isn't as much of a pull factor anymore especially after the DoJ's Thousand Talents prosecution shitshow.

Trump really fucked up the China-to-US talent pipeline which was a net benefit for us.

> they do not seem to be enforcing it for PKU, Shanghai Jiaotong, or Tsinghua

F-1 and J1/2 applications have fallen dramatically since this EO was passed (though zero COVID and the shutting down of American consulates during that affected this as well)

[seanmcdirmid]

Sorry, I was going by the forbes article:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2023/04/11/chine...

They are pretty arbitrary about it, I wouldn't be surprised if they were explicitly excluding tier 1s. Visas are back up:

https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-still-largest-group-of-for...

But we are still down from peak:

> The 2022-2023 school year, with 289,526 Chinese students, is the lowest number since the 2013-2014 academic year when 274,439 Chinese students attended U.S. colleges and universities. The highest enrollment number for Chinese students was 372,532 in 2019-2020.

[alephnerd]

All good!

> Visas are back up

Yep!

Now that the US is processing Chinese visa applications again (and Zero Covid ended) people are applying again, but ime most Chinese nationals I've seen or interviewed at American programs tend to be those who are Chinese nationals but studied abroad (eg. In the UK or Canada).

I don't really see Tier 1 Chinese STEM graduates at lower tier American programs anymore compared to say 5-10 years ago.

If there was some dataset to parse, I'd love to test my hypothesis that most Chinese F-1 applications are now for Chinese who aren't graduates from Chinese STEM programs.

[seanmcdirmid]

The tier 1 graduates don't need to go to lower tier American programs anymore. They've already leveled up beyond that. They are going to tier 1 programs abroad, or just going to work at a FAANG or a Chinese-equivalent (when I worked for Microsoft Research in Beijing, we lost a lot of tier 1 undergraduate new graduates to Google in California, and that was 10 years ago)