The Right Way to Bring Chinese STEM Talent Back to the U.S.

By Evan Burke on April 27, 2021

The Trump administration deployed a raft of restrictions on international students and workers, many of which directly targeted or disproportionally impacted Chinese STEM talent. While some measures had a basis in legitimate concerns like illicit technology transfer, they were often far broader than necessary, contributing to a more difficult environment for Chinese nationals in the U.S. and unduly harming U.S. companies and universities that rely on Chinese talent. To preserve American technology leadership—and soft power diplomacy—Biden should scrap much of the Trump administration’s agenda and create a more balanced approach to managing the STEM talent pipeline from China.

‘I Stand the Law’s Good Servant, but the People’s First’

Former Legislator Margaret Ng’s Statement at Her Sentencing Hearing for Unlawful Assembly in Hong Kong

By Margaret Ng on April 23, 2021

Former legislator and prominent lawyer Margaret Ng was given a suspended sentence of 12 months. In her sentencing statement, which she read out in open court, Ng recounted her career in law and politics, interweaving her own story with the decades-long fight for democracy and the rule of law in Hong Kong. As Ng noted, she had been part of an abortive effort more than two decades earlier to reform the very law—the colonial-era Public Order Ordinance—that the Hong Kong government used to successfully prosecute her.

Lydia Wong

on April 14, 2021

Lydia Wong is the pen name of a political science scholar and former rights activist from China. Currently based in the U.S., she has written widely on human rights movements in China, Chinese law and governance, and the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

Evan Burke

on April 14, 2021

Evan Burke is a Research Assistant in the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His work focuses on cyber diplomacy and the implications of a changing U.S.-China technology relationship. He holds a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University.

Magnus Fiskesjö

on April 12, 2021

Magnus Fiskesjö teaches anthropology and Asian studies at Cornell University. His main research interests include ethnic relations, heritage issues, and genocide in China, Burma, Taiwan, and beyond. He previously served in the Swedish embassies in China and Japan, and from 2000 to 2005 he was Director of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm. In 2000, he received a joint Ph.D. in Anthropology and in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago.

Will Protests against China Push Beijing to Intervene in Myanmar?

By Abby Seiff on April 1, 2021

Angry with the results of the November election, which saw a landslide win for the ruling National League for Democracy party, Myanmar’s military claimed electoral fraud. On February 1, they seized power from the civilian government, rounding up longtime NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the rest of the country’s civilian leadership and unleashing an increasingly violent force against the public. Hundreds of thousands have since taken to the streets, and the military has arrested thousands and killed more than 500. Almost from the start, protests against the coup have targeted not just the Tatmadaw, but neighboring China.