China has stepped up efforts to recruit elite scientists from the United States as it pushes to expand its influence in medicine, space, technology and other strategic fields, with at least 105 leading researchers moving to China since 2024, The Post has learned.
A Post analysis found that nearly half of those recent departures involved experts in biotechnology and medicine, underscoring Beijing’s intensifying drive to challenge — and potentially overtake — the United States in medical research and innovation.
Others who have left American universities or major companies bring expertise in high-priority areas including space science, climate research, computing and semiconductor development.
Many have taken positions at institutions backed by the Chinese Communist Party, often with substantial financial incentives and the promise of expansive research facilities. Former Harvard professor Charles Lieber, for example, was allegedly offered a $750,000 salary along with $150,000 in living expenses.
Some of the most prominent researchers recruited by China include:
“Both China and the United States recognize that the battlelines being drawn in the global war for scientific talent are critical for national security,” said Jack Burnham, senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ China Program.
“Beijing is increasingly betting that paralyzed federal science funding, concerns over immigration status for foreign workers and students at US universities, and its own pool of increasingly cutting-edge researchers will give it an advantage over Washington to lure away the next generation of top researchers.”
China was second only to the US as the world’s largest pharmaceutical market last year. It has long tried to figure out how to replicate American ingenuity, desperate to close the gap on drug research and development. Since 2024, it leapfrogged the US in clinical trial volume.
“There’s more and more interest in what China has been developing. They’re doing heavy recruiting in the US, and there’s an interest among scientists in the US because they have so much more freedom to advance treatments in China as opposed to what we’ve been mired down in regulatory restrictions in this country,” Dr. Roberta Shapiro, professor at Columbia University Medical Center and chief medical officer at Crescel, told The Post.
The FBI has repeatedly warned Chinese talent programs are part of a broader push to obtain foreign technology and expertise to bolster China’s strategic and military ambitions.
“Time and time again, the Communist government of China has proven that it will use any means necessary to advance its interests at the expense of others,” FBI counterintelligence assistant director John Brown had told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
“Beijing aims to acquire our technology — often in the early stages of development — as well as our expertise, to erode our competitive advantage and supplant the United States as a global superpower.”
Additional reporting by Nick Labbat
