  The US leadership in science and technology has greatly benefitted from
immigrants from other countries, most notably from China in the recent decades.
However, feeling the pressure of potential federal investigation since the 2018
launch of the China Initiative under the Trump administration, Chinese-origin
scientists in the US now face higher incentives to leave the US and lower
incentives to apply for federal grants. Analyzing data pertaining to
institutional affiliations of more than 2.3 million scientific papers, we find
a steady increase in the return migration of Chinese-origin scientists from the
US back to China. We also conducted a survey of Chinese-origin scientists
employed by US universities in tenure or tenure-track positions (n=1300), with
results revealing general feelings of fear and anxiety that lead them to
consider leaving the US and/or stop applying for federal grants.
