In the second episode of the “Vying for Talent” podcast, former Energy Secretary Steven Chu discussed U.S. science and technology innovation, the political outlook for STEM immigration reform, and why he is optimistic about America’s talent base. 

Chu urged the U.S government action to safeguard national competitive edge in STEM talent.

“I feel very strongly that we should remain a place which would educate people, especially in advanced degrees, because in the end, the history is an enormous benefit to the United States because most of that talent stays,” Chu said.

Podcast co-host Jude Blanchette, Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, asked if enough is being done to retain those sharp young minds.

“The United States has long viewed itself as a magnet for attracting the world’s best and brightest. Look at the leadership of many of America’s cutting edge technology firms, or walk the floors of its most advanced laboratories, and it seems obvious that foreign-born talent still wants to come to the United States to live and work,” he said. “But just how open is the door to foreign-born workers? And is the U.S. government taking sufficient steps to ensure that the United States can remain a leader in STEM fields?”

Chu used his family history to make a point. He was born in St. Louis, grew up on Long Island. His father was a professor at Brooklyn Polytechnic in Brooklyn, and his parents, both Chinese immigrants, sought the best possible educations for themselves and then their children.

Prejudice was a constant issue, for his parents, his father’s oldest sister, “a brilliant organic chemist,” and his maternal grandfather, who was educated in America, returned to China to work as a civil engineer, then a professor, before he became president of a university at age 30. 

He and his wife fled China in 1949, as the Cultural Revolution made it a dangerous place for intellectuals. When he returned to America, he faced discrimination and had to settle for a job as an engineer.

“So, I was unaware of those things when I was growing up in high school, in college, in graduate school,” Chu said. “In fact, once I made a joke that I said, ‘I have Chinese heritage’ and a fellow Nobel laureate looked at me and started laughing and he said, ‘I never thought of you as Chinese.’ So, it’s a very, very different sort of experience than my grandparents or my parents or their siblings.”

He said the USA must attract STEM intellectual talent, “architectural, it could be music, it could be many things.” Historically, that is what America has done in times of global crisis.

“China over the last decade or two, two decades really, are looking at the American playbook and said, we want to do the same. We’re going to invest heavily in science, science education, and grow talent, and try to attract foreign students,” Chu said. “Now, the foreign student attraction has not worked as well. The great thing about the United States is, even though there were at times prejudice against immigrants, each wave of immigrants would experience this, there was still this overriding thing, especially after the war, that this was a place of opportunity for science and education.

“So, being an American and wanting the best for my country, I’m saying, why do we want to turn this off? So, I feel very strongly that we still want to remain an open, welcoming country to train, especially, graduate students and post-doctoral people in science and engineering. Most of those people want to stay.”

Co-host Ryan Hass, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for East Asia Policy Studies, John L. Thornton China Center in the Brookings Institution, asked what will happen if Congress does not encourage smart, driven people to move to the USA?

“Yeah, I agree completely with you that no decision is a decision, because we’ve set a tone and there’s a confusion between awareness and a concern about the Chinese government and their aggressiveness, both militarily and also in helping companies spy on companies,” Chu said. “There’s a confusion between that and Chinese scholars who come to the United States and Chinese-American professors who have become U.S. citizens, raising their families in China. And so Congress has been a little bit confused about this or a lot confused depending on who you talk to, because the ones that I know who’ve come to the United States and become citizens of the United States and their families are, like me, really Americanized — as in I’m really American — there shouldn’t be this questioning of potential loyalty to their ancestral home, which I hear sometimes. There shouldn’t be any of these things.”

He said while this perceived hostility started in Congress, the looming prospect of former President Donald Trump, with his ”America first” rhetoric, returning to power raises fears and questions.

“So, we have to really take very seriously that for many decades we were viewed by the rest of the world as a welcoming country, a country of immigrants. And that by the time you’re here, unlike in certain countries in Europe, Switzerland, Germany, where you will never be regarded as German or Swiss — you could be even second or third generation, you won’t be regarded as German or Swiss. But in the U.S., the experience is, no, by the time you’re second generation you’ve been assimilated and many times even first generation.”

Chu said there are areas that fill him with hope and optimism.

“I think the United States remains a highly innovative place. A lot of the really innovative technologies still come from the United States,” he said. “I think it’s half a century of training people, especially in graduate school, how to get beyond textbooks, how to really think in a more daring way, and then support of an entrepreneurial system that also feeds this. So that’s one of America’s great strengths. And because of that, a lot of discoveries lead to innovations, lead to start companies that are part of our strength. But other countries around the world are catching up.”

Chu said he is counting on America to remain a beacon for hope and opportunity. It has been the country’s not-so-secret weapon for decades.

“I’m going to remain optimistic. I’m reminded of Churchill’s saying - America invariably does the right thing except after exhausting all other possibilities. So, we still have a deep talent base. The open society and the entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well,” he said. “So, I’m optimistic that eventually there’s going to be realization that we need to do this. And as long as the spirit’s still alive and well, we’ll do just fine. But don’t take it for granted.”

In closing remarks, Hass said Chu was very clear on the need for the United States to continue to take deliberate actions to attract top talent from around the world.

“And I was struck as he was reflecting upon President Eisenhower’s decision after the Sputnik launched by the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower, a former five-star general, could have very easily decided to respond to the Soviet advance by investing in our military,” he said. “But instead he chose to invest in the infrastructure of our science and engineering, plowing money into colleges and universities around the country. And it had a galvanizing effect on attracting some of the best Russian and Jewish and other scientists from around the world to want to come be a part of what was happening in the United States. And those efforts laid the groundwork for innovations around computers, around semiconductors, around the internet, and so much more. And it was just such an incredible return on investment from that decision that President Eisenhower made.”

Blanchette said America remains a magnet for “foreign-born talented individuals” who seek to live and work here.

“And our challenge has been creating a political consensus to help all Americans understand that our national security and our prosperity benefit from facilitating more inflows of talent into the United States,” he said. “I think through the conversation with Dr. Chu, again, it just highlights how critical of an asymmetric advantage we have here, which we need to work to increase the space between us and Beijing.”

Chu is the William R. Kenan Jr., Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular & Cellular Physiology in the Medical School at Stanford University.