US brain drain handing the global talent war to China

Thousands of highly skilled professionals, especially those of Chinese descent, are leaving American institutions for new opportunities in China and elsewhere. This is more than a reversal; it is a redistribution of global brainpower, one that is reshaping research ecosystems and tilting discernibly the balance of global innovation.

Between 2010 and 2021, nearly 20,000 Chinese-born scientists left the United States, a trend that accelerated after 2018. These are not second-string researchers: they include figures like neuroscientist Yan Ning, who left Princeton to lead the Shenzhen Medical Academy, and Gang Chen, a top MIT engineer who returned to Tsinghua University after being cleared of espionage-related charges.

Increasingly under Trump, restrictive visa policies, geopolitics and racialized suspicion are repelling rather than attracting top talent. The previous Trump administration’s China Initiative may be over, but its chilling effect remains.

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America is having its Ming Dynasty moment

Ming China was by far the greatest nation on the planet for most of the 15th and 16th centuries…But with the hindsight of history, the Ming doesn’t look so awesome. While China was basking in seemingly timeless stability, Europe was seething with new ideas and technological progress.

Even as the Chinese government banned oceanic shipping and heavily restricted foreign trade, European countries were discovering the New World and building trading empires…Another likely reason for the Ming’s decline was disrespect of science…[T]he Ming education system de-emphasized science and technical studies, and instead forced aspiring bureaucrats to learn “Confucianist” philosophy…

Why did the Ming allow itself to become isolationist, stagnant, and backward-looking? Historians are divided, but the leading explanation is what…Mark Elvin calls the “high-level equilibrium trap.” Simply put, when a country thinks it’s in a golden age, it stops focusing on progress…

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China isn’t getting rid of its controls over rare earths, despite trade truce with US

Despite a 90-day truce in its trade war with the United States, China appears to be maintaining tight control over its rare earth exports – preserving a key source of leverage in future negotiations amid intensifying strategic rivalry with Washington. As part of last week’s trade agreement in Geneva to temporarily roll back tariffs, China pledged to suspend or remove the “non-tariff” countermeasures it imposed on the US since April 2.

That has left businesses scrambling to find out whether that promise applies to China’s export controls on seven rare earth minerals and associated products, which were imposed on April 4 as part of its retaliation against US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on Chinese goods.

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Is China the winner in the India-Pakistan conflict?

The four-day conflict between arch-rivals India and Pakistan this month ended with a ceasefire and both claiming victory – but it now appears that China's defence industry might also be an unlikely winner. The latest flare-up began on 7 May when India launched attacks on what it called "terrorist infrastructure" inside Pakistan in response to the brutal killing of 26 people, mostly tourists by militants in Pahalgam on 22 April.

Many of them were killed in the scenic valley in Indian-administered Kashmir in front of their wives and family members. Delhi accused Islamabad of supporting militant groups involved in the carnage, a charge Pakistan denied. After India's response - which it called Operation Sindoor - to the militant attack, tit-for-tat military manoeuvres from both sides followed, involving drones, missiles and fighter jets.

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Apple boosts India's factory hopes - but a US-China deal could derail plans

Just as India showed flickers of progress toward its long-held dream of becoming the world's factory, Washington and Beijing announced a trade "reset" that could derail Delhi's ambitions to replace China as the global manufacturing hub.

Last week, Trump's tariffs on China dropped overnight - from 145% to 30%, vs 27% for India - as the two sides thrashed out an agreement in Switzerland. As a result, there's a chance manufacturing investment that was moving from China to India could either "stall" or "head back", feels Ajay Srivastava of the Delhi-based think tank, Global Trade Research Institute (GTRI).

"India's low-cost assembly lines may survive, but value-added growth is in danger."

The change in sentiment stands in sharp relief to the exuberance in Delhi last month when Apple indicated that it was shifting most of its production of iPhones headed to the US from China to India.

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