Despite certain snags, the Netherlands can’t afford to pass up on Chinese talent, argues Martijn Heck.
It’s not always fun to be a Chinese engineering student in the Netherlands. Or in the Western world. Career perspectives and internship options are often limited because of so-called knowledge security. Every Chinese student is basically considered a potential spy until proven innocent. Even if employers aren’t prejudiced, they feel the pressure from journalists and politicians. Why do we worry so much about China?
In the case of ASML, this is evident. EUV is a unique enabling technology for the semiconductor industry, and if China were to have its own high-end lithography, it would very likely surpass the US in chip technology. And so the US stepped in. It’s a sign of weakness, and Peter Wennink, former CEO of ASML, correctly argued that this would only strengthen China – and cost us money. In the wake of ASML, institutes like Imec had to withdraw from China, while Nexperia has prompted another major conflict.
Naturally, we shouldn’t be naïve. We know that there are ‘different approaches’ to intellectual properties and human rights. Many universities have banned the so-called China Scholarship Council students over concerns about royalty pledges to the Chinese Communist Party, among other things. This sensible action was taken far too late – it took universities a while to give up this cheap, but excellent, research labor, before reluctantly playing the ‘best interest for the student’ card.
However, we do need global collaboration, markets and trade. And we have a global war for talent. We’re not in an actual war with China. Europe has actually never been at war with China, except for some colonial black pages, which were obviously on us. Where’s the Dutch vision on this war for talent? Are we not too restrictive and too protective? President Trump has advocated for admitting 600,000 Chinese students to the US. Even in the past, we hardly admitted 1 percent of that number in the Netherlands. And while we cancel strategic academic collaborations here, we see other European universities opening campuses in China. That means Chinese talent enters the EU, but not to the benefit of the Netherlands.
What are we afraid of? We can hypothesize that Chinese students are sent as spies. But, as argued by many others, that’s a very cumbersome way of actually getting the right people in the right positions. Maybe even unfeasible, given the many years of preparation that it would require and the very volatile political situations. It’s also denying the most common motivator for making knowledge mobile and attracting it: money. We tend to forget that a good salary, or good funding for academics, will draw talent. And China offers that. To everybody. Indians, Americans and Europeans. Yes, even the Dutch. I get offers quite regularly. And this isn’t even an illegal move. It’s a free market. My knowledge and experience are in my brain, so I, and many of my colleagues, are very mobile.
(Note to our new government: Don’t cut university funding – you now know what might happen …)
The knowledge transfer also works the other way around, by the way. We focus on ASML and think we’re on top of the world, but the truth is that China is leading us in almost every other possible way. Some of us might naively think we lead in fields like semicon, photonics and quantum, but failed to ever look at Huawei, for example. We’re in the position to attract talent from such leading Chinese institutes and companies, though. We have a lot to offer, but we should engage. Play the game, enter the competitive field. And most importantly, talk to the Chinese people and ask them what motivates them and what might make them choose the Netherlands to build a career.
The Netherlands and Europe need to stay open for all talent, including Chinese talent. We need to be responsible and careful, but we also need to be competitive and opportunistic. For that, we need a vision and strategy for technology talent to meet our needs and not get pulled in the direction of the transatlantic leash.
