Overseas Chinese Students and Scholars in China’s Drive for Innovation

 

Overseas Chinese Students and Scholars in China’s Drive for Innovation Today the U.S.-China Commission released a new staff report entitled, “Overseas Chinese Students and Scholars in China’s Drive for Innovation.” The report examines Beijing's ecosystem of programs and incentives designed to exploit the expertise of Chinese students and scholars studying in STEM fields at universities in the United States and other advanced countries. This ecosystem leverages the scientific and technical knowledge Chinese researchers acquire while abroad to benefit China’s commercial and defense sectors. Much of this research is "fundamental" and not subject to controls, but both countries recognize its strategic value and potential. China's programs are designed to encourage it to be commercialized or applied in China first, depriving the United States of an early mover advantage in developing this technology despite funding the research, in many cases, in the first place. China’s activities raise concerning economic and national security implications for the United States. Key Findings Chinese leaders have long viewed advanced science and technology as key to China’s international power and sought to acquire it through licit and illicit means from developed countries like the United States. Beijing has built an elaborate ecosystem that targets foreign universities for the technology and talent it needs to win a national competition with the United States. China’s leaders regard overseas Chinese students and scholars as resources to be exploitedin a global geopolitical competition. Beijing sponsors promising Chinese students and scholars at U.S. and other foreign universities, incentivizes their return to China, and employs transnational organizations affiliated with the United Front to channel know-how from those remaining abroad back to mainland China. The government also sends abroad researchers affiliated with Chinese defense universities, government agencies, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to improve their own training and knowledge and, in many cases, contribute to China’s military-civil fusion strategy by collecting specific technologies and know-how. These programs target a minority of the overall Chinese student body. The majority of Chinese students and scholars who come to the United States engage in legitimate academic activities. Fewer than five percent of visa applications flagged as technology transfer risks are ultimately denied. U.S. agencies involved in screening for illicit technology transfer risks continually struggle with analyst shortages and high backlogs of reviews. Moreover, flags indicating a risk of future technology transfer are not always a legal basis for denying applications. U.S. law does not account for the global and increasingly integrated nature of China’s technology acquisition architecture or its shift toward prioritizing the transfer of scientific research and techniques considered “fundamental,” even though Beijing clearly regards fundamental research as strategic. Read the full report here.

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission