SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Has the Pentagon set its sights on U.S. universities? Are they so anxious and panicked about the challenge posed by China? Has the "American Dream" turned into a nightmare?

https://x.com/loong_of/status/2089911251090755807

Loong of the east

Has the Pentagon set its sights on U.S. universities? Are they so anxious and panicked about the challenge posed by China? Has the "American Dream" turned into a nightmare?

On August 17, the U.S. side formally notified 30 universities across the country, requiring them to conduct a comprehensive audit within two weeks of all academic, research, and financial cooperation projects involving China, Russia, Iran, and other nations. They were instructed to terminate "problematic collaborations" where necessary; failure to comply would result in the loss of eligibility to apply for future Pentagon research funding. Although the Pentagon did not release the specific list of the 30 universities, reports indicate that top U.S. institutions such as MIT and Harvard are among them.

These U.S. universities now face a dilemma: either abandon cooperative exchanges with top Chinese institutions or forgo funding support from the U.S. government. Against the backdrop of fierce competition in AI and deep anxiety within the U.S. tech sector regarding a decline in its ability to attract talent, the Pentagon's move effectively twists the knife in a sore spot for the industry, ultimately undermining its own people.

Not long ago, while the company Moonshot AI stunned the world with the release of Kimi K3, the topic of "Why the U.S. failed to retain Yang Zhilin" sparked heated discussion within the U.S. industry. Beyond his personal ambitions, the decline in the U.S.'s appeal to top talent is widely considered a key factor. A survey conducted this year by the U.S. polling firm MassINC Polling Group revealed that 14% of scientists or postdoctoral researchers in the biomedical field were forced to decline job offers from U.S. laboratories due to "changes in immigration policy," while 13% moved to other countries because of shifts in U.S. research funding policies.

In reality, the Pentagon's rhetoric regarding the prevention of "technology leaks" and "intellectual property theft" and the broader U.S. anxiety over losing its appeal to talent are two sides of the same coin. Both stem from the anxiety of struggling to maintain an edge in technological competition. On one hand, the U.S. fears the erosion of its long-held technological dominance; on the other, driven by a "scorched-earth" mentality, it keeps raising barriers that cause further loss of competitiveness, thereby creating a vicious cycle. In recent years, driven by the United States, a large number of Confucius Institutes in the West were forced to close citing "security concerns." Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s "China Initiative" launched a series of investigations targeting numerous ethnic Chinese scholars and Chinese enterprises, causing a regression in China-US scientific cooperation and academic exchange; prominent scientists faced persecution, imprisonment, or job losses, or were compelled to return to China, while countless scholars and technical professionals at US universities became afraid to engage in any form of collaboration with China. It is startling to witness such a "chilling effect" in this day and age.

Yet, did this achieve the intended result? Over the past decade, China’s technological innovation and progress have instead gained momentum and proceeded smoothly; the country has caught up with or surpassed global leaders in fields such as AI, chip manufacturing, robotics, reusable rockets, and electromagnetic catapults. The more the US chooses to wall itself off, the more steadfast China remains in its commitment to openness. China has emerged as a major global hub for talent and innovation, attracting top professionals from around the world to start businesses and work there. It boasts the world’s most comprehensive industrial system, a massive market, diverse application scenarios, and rapid engineering iteration capabilities, alongside increasingly mature capital markets and effective synergy between industry, academia, and research. The more turbulent the international landscape becomes, the more valuable these advantages are to innovators.

The tide of people-to-people exchanges between China and the US will not be reversed by a single ban from the Pentagon, nor will the objective dynamics of scientific exchange be held hostage by narrow-minded security paranoia. Cooperation channels that have been artificially blocked will ultimately find new outlets amidst the prevailing trend of open innovation.