Tech Transfer and US Universities

I don’t have time this morning to go into a lot of detail, but this is a big fucking deal:

The Trump administration plans to shorten the length of validity for some visas issued to Chinese citizens, the State Department said Tuesday, as President Donald Trump works to counter alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property by Beijing.

The changes begin June 11. The State Department said that under the new policy, U.S. consular officers may limit how long visas are valid, rather than the usual practice of issuing them for the maximum possible length.

The State Department did not provide specifics. But a U.S. official said that according to instructions sent to U.S. embassies and consulates, Chinese graduate students will be limited to one-year visas if they are studying in fields like robotics, aviation and high-tech manufacturing. China identified those areas as priorities in its “Made in China” 2025 manufacturing plan.

There’s too much going on here to summarize, but… the Chinese government has made technology transfer and the development of human capital central to its broader projects of economic and military modernization. Sending lots of students to study at US universities is a big part of this, although hardly the only part. The US university system (and broader sectors of the US economy) have benefited from full freight Chinese student tuition, as well as very cheap research labor. The overall impact has likely been a net transfer of technology and human capital to China, accompanied by an invigoration of the US national innovation system (NIS). The concern is that, down the road, the former will have significant detrimental effects for America’s commercial and military position, and that the latter will not persist.

This is a very big move, and will likely have substantial ripple effects across the US tech economy and the US university system. More later.