China was already scoring wins in its rivalry with the United States for scientific talent. It had drawn some of the world’s best researchers to its campuses, people decorated with Nobel Prizes, MacArthur “Genius” grants and seemingly every other academic laurel on offer.

在与美国争夺科研人才的竞争中，中国已经捷报频传。它吸引了一些世界上的顶尖研究人员来国内大学工作，他们中有诺贝尔奖获得者、麦克阿瑟“天才奖”获得者，以及其他各种学术桂冠的获得者。

Now the Trump administration’s policies might soon bolster China’s efforts.

特朗普政府的现行政策可能很快会助推中国的这一势头。

Under President Trump, the United States is slashing the research funding that helped establish its reputation as the global leader in science and technology. The president is also attacking the country’s premier universities, and trying to limit the enrollment of international students.

特朗普治下，美国正在大幅削减曾帮助其确立全球科技领导地位的科研经费。特朗普还对美国最著名的大学发起攻击，并试图限制国际学生来美国读书。

Scientists from China are under particular pressure, as U.S. officials have said that they may pose a national security threat by funneling valuable knowledge to China. Chinese-born scientists have been investigated or even arrested. Last week, the Trump administration said it would work to “aggressively revoke” the visas of Chinese students in “critical fields.”

在美国工作的来自中国科学家面临着尤其大的压力，因为美国官员已表示，这些人向中国输送宝贵知识，可能给美国带来国家安全威胁。多名中国出生的科学家遭到调查，甚至被逮捕。上周，特朗普政府说将“大力撤销”攻读“关键领域”的中国学生的签证。

As a result, many scholars are looking elsewhere.

结果，许多学者正在另寻他处。

And Chinese institutions have been quick to try and capitalize. Universities in Hong Kong and Xi’an said they would offer streamlined admission to transfer students from Harvard. An ad from a group with links to the Chinese Academy of Sciences welcomed “talents who have been dismissed by the U.S. NIH,” or National Institutes of Health.

中国的高校立刻试图把握良机。香港科技大学和西安交通大学已表示，将为从哈佛大学转学的学生提供简化的录取程序。一个与中国科学院有关联的团体发布广告，欢迎“被美国国立卫生研究院解雇的人才”。

北京大学的毕业生在校园里拍照，摄于上周五。

“The United States is shooting itself in the foot,” said Zhang Xiaoming, an anatomy expert who last year left the Baylor College of Medicine, in Texas, to lead the medical education program at Westlake University, a research university in the tech hub of Hangzhou.

“美国正在搬起石头砸自己的脚，”解剖学专家张晓明说，他去年离开了得克萨斯州的贝勒医学院，来到中国科技重镇杭州的研究型大学西湖大学担任解剖教学中心主任。

“Since I went to the United States more than 30 years ago, so much of its research has been supported by foreigners, including many Chinese,” said Professor Zhang, who emphasized that he was speaking for himself, not his employer. “Without foreigners, at least in the field of scientific research, they can’t go on.”

“自从我30多年前去美国起，那里的很多科研工作都是外国人帮助做的，包括许多中国人，”张晓明说。他强调，他的话只代表自己，不代表他的雇主。“如果没有外国人，至少在科研领域，他们无法继续下去。”

On its own, China had become more attractive to scientists in recent years because of the huge investments the country has made in research. Westlake is a prime example.

中国近年来在科研上大力投资，这本身已让该国对科学家更具吸引力。西湖大学就是一个典型的例子。

Established in 2018 by several high-profile scientists who had themselves returned to China from the West, Westlake’s campus exudes technological advancement. A spaceship-like tower looms over rows of research laboratories. Computing centers and animal testing facilities cluster around a central lawn, in a shape designed to evoke a biological cell.

西湖大学成立于2018年，其创办者是几名从西方回国的知名科学家。西湖大学校园里处处都能看到技术的发展。一个宇宙飞船样子的塔楼高耸在一排排实验室建筑之中。围绕着中央草坪的是计算中心和动物实验设施，草坪的形状有点像一个生物细胞。

In its main academic building, portraits of dozens of professors are on display — all of whom were recruited from overseas. There is Guan Kunliang, a biochemist who won a MacArthur “Genius” grant while in Michigan; Cheng Jianjun, a materials engineer honored multiple times by the National Science Foundation; Yu Hongtao, a Harvard-educated cell biologist who received millions in funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland.

主教学楼里陈列着数十名教授的肖像，他们都是从海外聘来的。他们中有生物化学家管坤良，他在密歇根大学工作期间获得了麦克阿瑟“天才奖”；还有多次获得美国国家科学基金会表彰的材料科学家程建军；以及从哈佛大学毕业的细胞生物学家于洪涛，他曾从马里兰州的霍华德·休斯医学研究所获得数百万美元的资助。

Recruitment notices advertise high compensation, in line with those at top foreign universities.

西湖大学高薪征聘广告上给出的待遇与国外顶尖大学的不相上下。

Westlake has been perhaps the most successful Chinese university at recruiting overseas talent, but it is far from the only one. Between 2010 and 2021, nearly 12,500 scientists of Chinese descent left the United States for China, according to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The rate of departure was accelerating: More than half of them left in just the five years between 2017 and 2021.

虽然西湖大学也许是在招募海外人才上最成功的中国大学，但绝非唯一。据《美国国家科学院院刊》发表的一项研究，有近1.25万名华裔科学家在2010年到2021年间离开美国回到中国。离开的速度不断加快：他们中的一半以上是在2017年至2021年的五年里离开的。

杭州西湖大学主教学楼里展示的世界一流科学家的肖像。

The trend has only continued in the last few years, said Yu Xie, a professor at Princeton University who coauthored the study.

该研究的共同作者、普林斯顿大学教授谢宇指出，这一趋势在过去几年里仍在继续。

Nor is it only Chinese-born scientists who are jumping ship. Charles Lieber, a former Harvard chemist who was convicted in 2023 of failing to disclose payments from a Chinese university, recently joined Tsinghua University.

选择离开的不只是中国出生的科学家。前哈佛大学教授、化学家查尔斯·利伯曾在2023年因没有申报来自中国大学的收入而被定罪，最近他加入了清华大学。

Chinese scientists have long flocked to American universities, lured by the promise of a world-class education and resources that their home country could not provide. In the 1980s, Chinese scientists who visited the United States would collect disposable test tubes to reuse in China, said Rao Yi, a neurobiologist at Peking University in Beijing, who studied and worked in the United States for two decades.

长期以来，中国的科学家们一批批地赴美学习访问，被祖国无法提供的世界一流教育和科研资源所吸引。北京大学的神经生物学家饶毅曾在美国学习和工作了20年，他说，20世纪80年代到美国访问的中国学者会把一次性的试管收集起来，以便回国后再次使用。

The admiration continued even as China’s economy boomed. In 2020, nearly one-fifth of Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering and mathematics awarded in the United States went to students from China, according to data from the National Science Foundation. Historically, the vast majority of those Ph.D.s stayed in the United States — 87 percent between 2005 and 2015, the data showed. Many became U.S. citizens, and they have helped the United States accumulate patents, publications and Nobel Prizes.

即便在中国经济腾飞后，人们对美国的这种钦佩仍在继续。据美国国家科学基金会的数据，2020年美国在科学、技术、工程、数学领域授予的博士学位中，有近20%是中国留学生获得的。数据还显示，从历史上看，绝大多数获得了博士学位的留学生留在了美国，留美的百分比在2005年至2015年间曾高达87%。许多人成了美国公民，帮助增加了美国的专利数、发表的论文数，以及诺贝尔奖获得者。

But in recent years, more scientists have been returning to China, drawn partly by government recruitment programs promising them millions of dollars in funding as well as housing subsidies and other perks. China’s spending on research and development is now second only to the United States. And Chinese institutions such as Tsinghua and Zhejiang University now routinely rank among the best in the world for science and technology.

但近年来，受政府人才引进计划吸引，越来越多科学家选择回国。这些计划承诺提供数千万人民币的资助、住房补贴和其他福利。中国的研发支出目前仅次于美国。清华大学和浙江大学等中国高校如今在科技领域的排名经常位居世界前列。

The investment is part of a plan to turn China into a scientific superpower, especially in strategically important fields such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors and biotechnology.

这些投资是中国科技强国战略的重要组成部分，尤其是在人工智能、半导体和生物技术等具有战略意义的领域。

“The scientific and technological revolution is intertwined with the game between superpowers,” China’s leader, Xi Jinping, said last year.

“科技革命与大国博弈相互交织，”中国国家主席习近平去年曾这样说。

At the same time, the United States has been pushing scientists away for years, in particular by investigating their ties with China.

与此同时，美国这些年来一直在推走科学家，特别是针对他们与中国的关系展开调查。

Lu Wuyuan, a protein chemist formerly at the University of Maryland, was one of those targeted. He was investigated by the National Institutes of Health for allegedly failing to disclose research ties to China — ties he said Maryland knew about. After 20 years at the university, he quit in 2020.

曾在马里兰大学任教的蛋白质化学家陆五元就曾是目标之一。他因涉嫌未披露与中国的研究关系（他说马里兰大学早已知情）受到了美国国立卫生研究院的调查。在马里兰大学工作了20年后，他于2020年辞职。

复旦大学医学院的研究员陆五元教授，上周五摄于上海。

Most of the cases brought under the so-called China Initiative eventually collapsed. Many researchers criticized the campaign as racial profiling.

所谓“中国行动计划”调查的多数案件最终都在法庭上失败了。许多研究人员批评该计划是种族形象定性。

Professor Lu, who now works at Fudan University in Shanghai, said that many of his friends mused about leaving the United States, but most chose to stay because they had built lives there.

陆五元目前在上海复旦大学工作，他说，他的不少朋友都考虑过离开美国，但大多数人选择留下来，因为他们已在美国建立了自己的生活。

The Trump administration’s assault on research funding may change that.

特朗普政府削减研究经费的做法可能会改变这种情况。

“If they cut so much funding, I believe that may be the last straw for many people,” Professor Lu said.

“如果他们这么大笔地砍经费，我认为这可能是压垮很多人的最后一根稻草，”陆五元说。

Still, China faces its own issues in poaching talent.

尽管如此，中国在挖人才方面也面临着自身的问题。

It has become harder for Chinese universities to meet and woo overseas scientists, as Chinese scholars have had trouble securing visas to the United States to attend academic conferences. Researchers in America also face restrictions in visiting China; Texas, for example, prohibits employees of public universities from traveling to China for work.

由于中国学者难以拿到赴美参加学术会议的签证，中国大学与海外科学家接触和争取他们的机会减少。美国的研究人员也面临访问中国的限制；例如，得克萨斯州已禁止公立大学的员工去中国进行与工作有关的旅行。

The scientists who have returned to China largely fall into a few categories: those who are early in their careers, or who are nearing retirement, or who felt pushed out by investigations. Established midcareer scholars are still reluctant to leave, multiple scientists said.

已经回国的科学家大致可归为几类：处于职业生涯早期的、即将退休的，以及那些因为受到调查而觉得遭到排挤的人。多名科学家表示，一些处于职业生涯中期的知名学者仍不愿回国。

Professor Rao at Peking University, who was also one of Westlake’s co-founders, said that China’s progress in recruiting international talent had also been hampered by jealousy among domestic colleagues.

北京大学的饶毅也是西湖大学的联合创始人之一，他说，中国在招募国际人才上取得的进展，也受到了国内同行嫉妒心理的阻碍。

北京大学的饶毅教授（左）在实验室里看学生做研究，摄于上周五。

“While funding should increase, it is not the key factor at this stage,” Professor Rao said. “Supporting scientists based on merit and their good science is the key.”

“虽然资金应该增加，但这并非现阶段的关键因素，”饶毅说。“关键是对科学家的资助应该建立在任人唯贤、他们的科学是否优秀的基础上。”

And even at home, scientists are not spared political scrutiny. Chinese universities face limits on free expression, and China’s Ministry of State Security has warned that scholars returning from overseas may be spies.

即使在国内，科学家们也躲不开政治上的审查。中国的大学缺乏言论自由，中国的国家安全部警告称，海归学者可能是间谍。

Multiple Chinese-born scientists — both those who had returned to China, and those still in the United States — emphasized that they did not want to get entangled in politics. They were just trying to do good work.

多名在中国出生的科学家（包括已经回国的和仍在美国的）强调说，他们不想卷入政治，只想做好工作。

The simple fact was, many agreed, that it was increasingly easier to do so in China.

许多人都同意，一个简单的事实是，在中国做好工作已变得越来越容易。

“It’s hard to survive in America. And China is developing so fast,” said Fu Tianfan, 32, an artificial intelligence researcher who left Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in December to join Nanjing University.

“在美国生存很难。中国正在如此之快地发展，”现年32岁的人工智能研究员符天凡说，他已于去年12月离开了伦斯勒理工学院，来到南京大学教书。

“Whether it was the best choice,” he said, “it may take some time to say.”

“可能需要一段时间才能知道这是否是最好的选择，”他说。