The U.S. government is starting to exclude Chinese students and researchers, while the Chinese government is going its own way when it comes to developing science and technology, trends that academics say will hollow out the institutions America has come to rely on to maintain its global competitiveness.
Researchers from the hegemons are used to collaborating and in many cases have become interdependent, but the U.S.-China decoupling in scientific research puts American science and technology advances at risk.
“I thought studying in Japan would be better than in the U.S.,” said Wang Yuchen, who is pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo. Wang graduated from Peking University in 2016, having majored in physics. Accepted by Princeton University, he chose not to go.