A LESS WELCOMING US
Most Chinese students in science, maths and technology have, historically, chosen to stay in the US after their PhDs but the number of returnees is reported to be increasing. Even for those who chose to stay, more have started to return mid-career.
One reason for some is the political and social environment. A Stanford survey of 1,304 US-based Chinese-descent scientists in 2024 revealed that 73 per cent of them felt unsafe as academic researchers, with 65 per cent pointing to fears around “anti-Asian hate and violence”.
The debate over Yang’s departure has become a proxy for broader US concern about AI talent retention. Some in Silicon Valley have called for green cards to be stapled to every AI PhD. But that misses a larger structural reality.
China is no longer merely a net importer of US-trained talent; it has built its own pipeline. Stanford’s Hoover Institution tracked 356 researchers behind DeepSeek’s core models and found that 53.5 per cent had never studied or worked outside China. Among those with US experience, 70 per cent ultimately returned to China.
Yang belongs to a vanguard for whom returning is not a fallback but a first choice. His decision was not driven by visa uncertainty but by entrepreneurial conviction. Yet the message America sends to the next Yang Zhilin matters. The US visa system is built around employment, not entrepreneurship. That works less well for founders.
For decades, America’s tech dominance rested on a simple formula: attract the world’s brightest minds and keep them. Yang Zhilin’s story suggests that approach is being tested – not just because the US has become less welcoming but because China has become more magnetic.
The question is not whether Yang made the right choice. It is how many more like him will make the same one – with a conviction that the future they want to build lies elsewhere.
