从2000年至2019年，在美中国学生人数增加了六倍，达到37.2万多，占美国所有国际学生的三分之一以上。此后人数却下降了近30%，在新冠疫情以及威胁“积极撤销中国学生签证”、对新H1-B签证申请征收10万美元费用等敌意政策下，赴美留学正变成一笔风险更高的赌注。
2010年至2021年间，大约有近两万名具有中国背景的科学家离开美国，2018年启动、约九成被告为华裔且只有约四分之一案件以定罪告终的“中国产业计划”进一步加速了这一外流。到2021年离美的中国科学家中有三分之二选择回到中国，而2010年这一比例还不到一半，背后是中国自世纪之初以来研发支出实际增长16倍并向“海归”科学家大举提供优厚待遇。
在人工智能领域，中国已成为全球人才的最大来源，贡献了全球近一半顶尖AI研究者以及在美工作的约40%AI研究者，而在美完成博士学位的非美国AI人才仍有约80%选择留在美国工作。尽管如此，博士毕业后转向中国的人才比例已从2019年的4%翻倍至2022年的8%，再加上精英11人AI团队中多为华人以及部分中国研究者重新评估在美前景的轶事，显示出美国高校和企业正面临一条缓慢收缩的中国人才管道。
From 2000 to 2019, the number of Chinese students in America grew six-fold to over 372,000, accounting for more than one-third of all international students there. Since then their numbers have fallen by nearly 30%, as Covid-19 and hostile policies—such as threats to “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students” and a proposed $100,000 fee on new H1-B applications—have made US study an increasingly risky bet.
Between 2010 and 2021, nearly 20,000 scientists of Chinese origin left America, with departures to China accelerating after the 2018 China Initiative, in which roughly 90% of defendants were ethnically Chinese and only about one-quarter of cases ended in conviction. By 2021, two-thirds of Chinese scientists leaving the US went to China, up from less than half in 2010, encouraged by a 16-fold real increase in Chinese R&D spending since 2000 and generous incentive programmes for returnees.
In artificial intelligence, China is now the top global source of talent, supplying nearly half of the world’s best AI researchers and almost 40% of those working in America, while about 80% of non-American AI PhDs who graduate in the US still stay to work. Yet the share who instead choose China after US PhDs doubled from 4% in 2019 to 8% in 2022, and anecdotes of elite 11-person AI teams dominated by China-born staff and researchers reconsidering US careers signal a slowly shrinking pipeline of Chinese talent for American universities and firms.
Source: America is foolishly waving goodbye to thousands of Chinese boffins
Subtitle: Hostile policies and attacks on science are driving them back into China’s arms
Dateline: 12月 04, 2025 05:40 上午