2025-08-15XThread

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The war for talent is on. China already took over US manufacturing. Now it's making a bid for the talent pipeline too. https://t.co/dFrlMSJOwp There was a bad argument that went something like this: "if it was smart to recruit great engineers from around the world, why isn't China doing it?" It was a bad argument on three levels. (1) First, China actually did send its own engineers around the world to learn, for decades, just like the Japanese did decades before them. They didn't insist on 100% homegrown talent in every respect. (2) Second, until recently, there was widespread denial that China had even succeeded technologically in any respect (and indeed this denial still exists). (3) Third, China actually has been recruiting global talent via Hong Kong for a while[1]. But now with this new visa there's really no argument. China is unfortunately just moving in the opposite direction from the US on talent. The explicit goal of this new Chinese K-visa[2] is to recruit skilled engineers and scientists from around the world. Other locations are recruiting digital nomads and tech workers as well. In general, places that produce and/or attract tech talent will likely do well. And places that don't, likely won't. [1]: https://t.co/Ybytnpd3Gr [2]: https://t.co/dVx26gFj7o

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THE WAR FOR TALENT Are there countries that want capital and talent? Of course there are. The UAE is all in on this. And they already attract more millionaires per year than the US, with 1/30 the population: They're also recruiting heavily for talent. They have visa programs where you can just self sponsor yourself and get approval quickly, rather than waiting years through the byzantine American process. The green visa is an example: As a consequence, more than 240,000 Brits have already moved to Dubai, along with literally millions of people of Indian origin. The country has only ~1M native Emiratis so more than 80% of the residents are mobile workers, both skilled and unskilled. You can't become a UAE citizen unless you're globally exceptional like Pavel Durov. But in practice this isn't a big deal for most skilled workers. It's like working at Google where you get access to the cafeteria so long as you're employed there. Similarly, so long as you can support yourself and obey the law, you can likely get to the UAE and build a life there. And if you can't get into the UAE? Well, they aren't the only country recruiting for talent. So is the rest of the world. Dozens of countries have opened up digital nomad, remote worker, and golden visa programs. Because they want talented, law-abiding people to come in, work hard, and enrich their economy. Only those places which have inherited vast wealth (but forgotten how to build it) are contemptuous towards global talent and capital. Because in the internet era the cloud has leverage too. You just need a laptop, a coffee shop, and a welcoming jurisdiction. And there are many of them.
balajis ↗

It flew under the radar, but China is already opening up visas for tourism (on the mainland) and talent (via Hong Kong). And factions within the US now want to aggressively move in the other direction, closing themselves off from the world — not just to illegal aliens but to talent and tech and capitalism entirely. I understand why many want to give up the burdens of empire — I’m not judging, just analyzing. But I hadn’t thought about China making a play to recruit talent that might have headed to the US in the past. Russia is the obvious candidate, but Iran, Turkey, and several BRICS countries have strong engineers too. I mean, it would take a whole lot for the US to fumble the bag on such a level. But it’s now unfortunately possible.
balajis ↗