Opinion

How China is winning the war with the US for scientific hearts and minds

Anson Au says the Trump administration’s anti-Chinese and anti-science biases are producing policies and a working environment that are pushing away talent in research and development, and it is China that will benefit

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Anson Au, PhD, is an assistant professor of sociology, in the Department of Applied Social Sciences, at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Published: 4:15pm, 24 Jun 2018Updated: 4:35pm, 24 Jun 2018

Xenophobia and racial discrimination have taken centre stage in the US amid a whirlwind of political decisions made by the Trump administration. And, as trade tensions between China and the US escalate, a proxy war of sorts between the two contesting rivals is already being fought elsewhere: in academia.

Citing fears of “intellectual property theft”, US authorities have announced plans to limit Chinese graduate students in certain fields to one-year visas. In the past, five-year visas could be obtained that would typically cover the time taken to earn a PhD; a one-year visa, by contrast, is hardly enough even for a master’s degree.

But this is nothing new. In fact, it only highlights the long-standing problem of discrimination against Asians in academia.

In a recent social experiment, professors in Germany were sent hundreds of identical requests for doctoral supervision from Chinese-sounding names purporting to be from several universities, including Pennsylvania State University and the National University of Singapore. US-based candidates were three times as likely to receive additional information in responses, and twice as likely to be given a warm, excited response or addressed by their first name.