5/Ultimately agree with the article that we shouldn't give up on advancing classical liberal values by shutting our doors to Chinese students, even if the US strategy of changing the CCP as a whole, via economic liberalization in the early 2000s, turned into a colossal failure.

4/But most returnees are going to be undergrads and master's students, usually from well-off & connected families. Maybe this can overcome the growing bias against hai gui and still land government roles--in which case they could be well positioned for American intelligence.

3/Research I did with UCLA's Robert Zeithammer found that PhD students with more nationalist pride were willing to sacrifice higher incomes in the US to return home & contribute to China's rise. Meaning that the 15-20% of those that do return might not be receptive to US intel wooing. bit.ly/3I3eC0x

2/Most Chinese students in the US (~220,000) are pursuing undergrad and master's programs with the intention of returning home. This is separate from the 50,000 PhDs (mostly in STEM) that largely stay after graduation (80-85%) and play a critical role in US R&D ecosystem, particularly in AI.

5/All of this does seem to be setting up China to be the global 'savior' around climate change--if not in reality than at least as a powerful marketing tool for the CCP to use in global forums to further it's soft power gains. shorturl.at/w9lfs

4/One benefit of an emerging Chinese 'electrostate' is regardless of US action, emissions should be in for major declines. A flood of cheap Chinese solar & EVs in the Global South should cut future GHG growth and China's own emissions should follow EU/US decline trends, right? shorturl.at/ynbEO

3/In terms of energy exports, US LNG has higher margins/value, but locks in customers for decades, has a volatile fuel price, and requires specialized infrastructure. Chinese solar panels+batteries seems more modular and appealing for the developing world. shorturl.at/nD1fw

2/Given bi-partisan national security concerns on China and the increasing importance of drone warfare--are we now disincentivizing battery development for these applications or just ones for EVs? Seems like both since the tech stack is interlinked. shorturl.at/Dz9Xb

Here's a link to the Trump AI plan. Not much concern about job displacement in here... bit.ly/4ftn4Te

Thanks for pointing this out. Haven't read through it all yet, but this section in the Trump AI plan stood out since it runs counter to US AI champions like OpenAI (closed model, for-profit). It's been Chinese models like Deepseek that are leading the open source race.

2/If that happens it will be another sign of how far Russia has fallen in the Middle East as discussed in @mcfaulmike.bsky.social & Abbas Miliani's excellent piece in @foreignaffairs.com. bit.ly/4mwlF0t

This seems highly unlikely given Trump’s stated goal of $50/bbl oil. Plus keeping Russian crude off the market means going after big buyers like China and India. Lower energy prices is the only thing keeping US inflation under control since ‘Liberation Day’