I wouldn’t worry about this too much. Brain drain, despite the name, is not really a zero-sum game. The people who move rarely lose all contact with the host country. They gain invaluable experience, know-how, and contacts that some of them eventually bring back to the host country.
I know of more than one example where someone has been “brain-drained” to the states, who has subsequently moved back to start a successful business. Sometimes leveraging gained contacts directly, sometimes leveraging the newfound experience and knowledge.
Whether this works out this way depends on how open the world (or at least the respective countries between each other) is when it comes to movement of people, money, and trade.
The only reason the Chinese solar industry exists is because of so called "brain drain" from China to Australia and Germany.
The reality is far less zero sum. These Chinese scientists learned about and contributed to solar research overseas, and some of them went back to China and made China wealthier.
Do you actually believe Chinese researchers are incapable of figuring out photovoltaics by themselves? China has first-rate universities and thousands of PhDs in every field imaginable. They can make solar cells without our help. Having access to western research only sped up the inevitable. China has a solar industry today simply because the Chinese government decided that energy production was a top priority. They made it happen.
The OP was talking about Shi Zhengrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Zhengrong who came to Australia (my country) in the 90s, learned a bunch about photovoltaics, was unable to make a business here due to our failed government policies, then returned to China and made a pv megabusiness.
The truth of the matter is that most cutting edge research is spearheaded by the west. The problem is that the west can't build or prioritise anything useful with it.
China produces more scientific papers than the US or EU. China produces 30% of papers published in the world's top journals. China also produces more top tier scientific papers (1% most cited) than the US.
A decade ago the west was clearly ahead of China in fundamental research. Not anymore.
Why construct a false binary between being incapable of figuring it out by themselves and being capable? Its about velocity and magnitude and matters of degree, not this notion of true or false.
Notice that it's the parent who made the binary and totally false claim that "The only reason the Chinese solar industry exists is because of brain drain".
Yes of course but when articles like this (and the general policy/assumption in the US) just blankly asserts that we can just “brain-drain” our way back to prosperity and dominance, there isn’t much nuanced consideration of the limits, caveats and tradeoffs inherent to that approach, which need much more than an HN comment or brief blog post to fully explore.
I’d be happy if the US policies these days were based on _at least_ an HN comment. A typical HN comment does a much better job of considering at least some of the caveats and trade-offs than a POTUS Truth Social post.
EDIT: Thinking about it, it’s kind of hilarious that it’s called “Truth Social”, given that it’s mostly antisocial lies.
> The people who move rarely lose all contact with the host country. They gain invaluable experience, know-how, and contacts that some of them eventually bring back to the host country.
How many Europeans who emigrated to the USA in the late 19th and early 20th centuries returned to their countries after making it big in America? Is any of Europe's economic development since then attributable to them?
My families original immigrents had many members return to Europe. My Grandfather went back to the old country after WW2 to try to find the family that stayed behind or returned and there was no trace of them.
Our 20th century immigrant experience was that the old country evaporated and there was no longer a connection.
This is a difficult comparison to make, given that Europe experienced a >5% total population loss in that period due to two world wars, and half of Europe remained behind the iron curtain for another ~30 years. For a significant portion of emigrants, there wasn't a whole lot to return to.
I know of more than one example where someone has been “brain-drained” to the states, who has subsequently moved back to start a successful business. Sometimes leveraging gained contacts directly, sometimes leveraging the newfound experience and knowledge.
Whether this works out this way depends on how open the world (or at least the respective countries between each other) is when it comes to movement of people, money, and trade.