The War for Chinese Talent in America
Thursday, 10 October 2024 | 14:30 to 16:00 EDT | Room 280A, Second Floor, York Lanes, Keele Campus, York University
With David Zweig (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)
Since the mid-1990s, China’s party/state has vigorously used an extensive array of programs and incentives to persuade ethnic Chinese living in America to transfer their technological knowhow back home. Many Chinese working abroad facilitated this flow, some to strengthen their former homeland, others from self-interest. In 2018, the Trump Administration declared war on those efforts through the “China Initiative.” Hundreds of Chinese scientists were investigated, their research was disrupted, and more than 100 were fired. Yet almost none were found guilty of espionage or theft of intellectual property.
Discussants:
B. Michael Frolic, Professor Emeritus, Department of Politics, York University
Jingxu (Jesse) Zhu, Distinguished University Professor & Canada Research Chair, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Western University
Chair & Moderator:
Qiang Zha, York Centre for Asian Research & Faculty of Education, York University
Based on his book with the same title (published by the Association for Asian Studies in August 2024), David Zweig will recount China’s “over-the-top” effort to gain the help of these talented Chinese, as well as the U.S. government’s harsh effort to disrupt the transfer of U.S. technology to China. He will tell the stories of unknown victims of that campaign, and highlight the harm this war has brought to Sino-American scientific collaboration and the flow of Chinese students to America.
David Zweig is Professor Emeritus, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Distinguished Visiting Professor of Taipei School of Economics and Political Science, National Tsinghua University, Taiwan, and Vice-President of the Center for China and Globalization (Beijing). For 15 years, he directed the Center on China’s Transnational Relations at HKUST. He received his BA (Hons) and MA from York University in the early 1970s.
