Visa restrictions, export controls, national security reviews and travel scrutiny have added layers of uncertainty to decisions about where to live and work that were once framed largely as career choices.
Li of RSIS described the trend as one of segmentation.
Elite researchers, founders and executives may still have the networks and resources to move across borders – but the broader pipeline of students, mid-career engineers and early-stage entrepreneurs may become less fluid.
That could have wider consequences beyond a simple talent redistribution from one country to another.
“What stops moving is the tacit layer,” Li said.
The deeper loss would be the movement of research instincts, management habits, product experience, laboratory culture and informal knowledge that do not travel easily through papers, patents or public datasets, he added.
TALENT AS A STRATEGIC ASSET
The changing politics of talent is also visible in how such movements are portrayed.
Chinese media reports have increasingly highlighted overseas-trained scientists and AI researchers who return to China and take up senior roles at Chinese firms – presenting them as contributors to national technology ambitions.
But several interviewees have warned against reducing individual choices to geopolitics alone.
Wang Li of Even Realities said young engineers and entrepreneurs should first focus on learning and problem solving rather than geography.
“They do not need to optimise geography – they need to optimise for the learning, where they can find the most talented people to work with, and also to choose those problems that actually matter to solve,” she said.
Deng of Butlr argued that competition between the US and China did not have to eliminate collaboration, especially in technologies meant to solve practical problems for people.
“The right tech for (human beings) should be borderless,” he said.