Trans-Pacific View | Society | East Asia

2 Olympic Gold Medalists Show the Mixed Results of China’s Efforts to Bring Back Diaspora Talent

China’s push to attract ethnic Chinese talent from the U.S., in particular, is up against hard limits – but anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States may work to Beijing’s advantage.

Alysa Liu of the United States performs during the women’s figure skating short program during the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.

“So many athletes compete for a different country. People only have a problem with me doing it because… they just hate China.” That was Olympic skier Eileen Gu’s response to U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s comment that she should be competing for the United States. 

Gu, though born in the U.S., decided to represent China’s national team before the 2022 Olympics. From a broader perspective, her story brings into focus China’s efforts to entice those with Chinese heritage to work for the “motherland” – not only elite athletes but scientists, researchers, and entrepreneurs. 

A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the Beijing municipal government paid Gu and fellow U.S.-born athlete Beverly Zhu $6.6 million in 2025. But that figure only represents a small proportion of Gu’s annual income of $23 million, much of which comes from corporate sponsorship deals that bank on her celebrity status in China.

Gu is just one high-profile example of the formula the Chinese government originally developed for those with advanced STEM backgrounds. The Thousand Talents Plan, which ran for a decade until 2018, and its successor, the Qiming, aimed to lure top scholars to China with lavish government grants, alongside institutional support for their work at universities and research institutes. 

And like Gu, many of the so-called “returnees” have since leveraged their star power to earn more than just government funding by founding and working for top Chinese technology firms. As many on social media said about Gu, these ethnic Chinese individuals would succeed in the United States, but not make nearly as much money as they are making in China.

Yet even as both government and private-sector funding bring more top athletes and technology performers back to China, political push factors keep many others away. 

Days after Gu’s retort to Vance, another Chinese American – figure skater Alysa Liu – took home a gold medal – but for the United States. Her American status is secure. Her father is Arthur Liu, a dissident who participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests; both father and daughter were allegedly targeted by Chinese spies. That fear is enough to ensure that she will not represent Team China. 

Liu is just one of many “lost opportunities” for China in the talent competition with the United States. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that only 41 percent of Chinese Americans had a favorable view of China – with more favorable views of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Over a third – 35 percent – of these respondents explicitly expressed their dislike of China, more than they did for any other Asian country. Their personal experiences of the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen protests, and harassment for their Christian faith inform the negativity. For these individuals, government funding and corporate sponsorships cannot erase the political distaste toward their ancestral homeland.

The split allegiance of Chinese Americans will play a role in the ongoing China-U.S. race for technological supremacy. In particular, many top AI researchers in both countries are ethnically Chinese and educated in the United States, making it increasingly essential to evaluate where such individuals would like to develop their future careers. 

The United States seeks to keep the brightest with unbeatable salaries and stock options. But the trend of “anti-China” sentiment among Chinese Americans means that for the U.S. to emphasize money may not be the best course of action. People like Arthur Liu raised their children to be American not solely because of financial resources. Instead, ideological resonance, grounded in the United States’ status as a safe harbor from the Chinese government’s political abuses, may be a more compelling offer.

Driving this message home, however, will require the United States to continue being an inclusive society. Recent years have seen greater success in China’s talent acquisition thanks to the Trump administration’s increasingly overt stance against ethnic Chinese scholars. 

If the government insists on equating Chinese heritage with suspected Chinese allegiance, then is there a place in America for the nuance symbolized by Chinese dissidents? And what would stop many more Chinese Americans from becoming cynically flexible with their allegiance, purely based on where the most money can be made?

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“So many athletes compete for a different country. People only have a problem with me doing it because… they just hate China.” That was Olympic skier Eileen Gu’s response to U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s comment that she should be competing for the United States. 

Gu, though born in the U.S., decided to represent China’s national team before the 2022 Olympics. From a broader perspective, her story brings into focus China’s efforts to entice those with Chinese heritage to work for the “motherland” – not only elite athletes but scientists, researchers, and entrepreneurs. 

A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the Beijing municipal government paid Gu and fellow U.S.-born athlete Beverly Zhu $6.6 million in 2025. But that figure only represents a small proportion of Gu’s annual income of $23 million, much of which comes from corporate sponsorship deals that bank on her celebrity status in China.

Gu is just one high-profile example of the formula the Chinese government originally developed for those with advanced STEM backgrounds. The Thousand Talents Plan, which ran for a decade until 2018, and its successor, the Qiming, aimed to lure top scholars to China with lavish government grants, alongside institutional support for their work at universities and research institutes. 

And like Gu, many of the so-called “returnees” have since leveraged their star power to earn more than just government funding by founding and working for top Chinese technology firms. As many on social media said about Gu, these ethnic Chinese individuals would succeed in the United States, but not make nearly as much money as they are making in China.

Yet even as both government and private-sector funding bring more top athletes and technology performers back to China, political push factors keep many others away. 

Days after Gu’s retort to Vance, another Chinese American – figure skater Alysa Liu – took home a gold medal – but for the United States. Her American status is secure. Her father is Arthur Liu, a dissident who participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests; both father and daughter were allegedly targeted by Chinese spies. That fear is enough to ensure that she will not represent Team China. 

Liu is just one of many “lost opportunities” for China in the talent competition with the United States. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that only 41 percent of Chinese Americans had a favorable view of China – with more favorable views of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Over a third – 35 percent – of these respondents explicitly expressed their dislike of China, more than they did for any other Asian country. Their personal experiences of the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen protests, and harassment for their Christian faith inform the negativity. For these individuals, government funding and corporate sponsorships cannot erase the political distaste toward their ancestral homeland.

The split allegiance of Chinese Americans will play a role in the ongoing China-U.S. race for technological supremacy. In particular, many top AI researchers in both countries are ethnically Chinese and educated in the United States, making it increasingly essential to evaluate where such individuals would like to develop their future careers. 

The United States seeks to keep the brightest with unbeatable salaries and stock options. But the trend of “anti-China” sentiment among Chinese Americans means that for the U.S. to emphasize money may not be the best course of action. People like Arthur Liu raised their children to be American not solely because of financial resources. Instead, ideological resonance, grounded in the United States’ status as a safe harbor from the Chinese government’s political abuses, may be a more compelling offer.

Driving this message home, however, will require the United States to continue being an inclusive society. Recent years have seen greater success in China’s talent acquisition thanks to the Trump administration’s increasingly overt stance against ethnic Chinese scholars. 

If the government insists on equating Chinese heritage with suspected Chinese allegiance, then is there a place in America for the nuance symbolized by Chinese dissidents? And what would stop many more Chinese Americans from becoming cynically flexible with their allegiance, purely based on where the most money can be made?

Xiaochen Su, Ph.D., is a business risk and education consultant currently based in Malta. He previously worked in Japan, East Africa, Taiwan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia.

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