Why Does Sending Chinese PhD Students Away Hurt the US?

Eric Schmidt gives the United States the edge on leadership and talent, then says the country is giving that edge away. Taking the smartest people, arresting them, kicking them out, and denying them visas is a bad strategy. The pattern he calls out is graduate students, typically from China and from other countries: the United States gives them a PhD and then makes them leave.

One person who wanted to stay in America now leads China's quantum program. Schmidt says the quantum adversary is China and that person. The country trained him, then kicked him out, and he went on to lead the rival program. Schmidt still scores leadership and talent for the United States. The loss, as he tells it, is self-inflicted.