This is very true. Was just talking to a friend the other day who went back to China after running a lab for nearly a decade in the US.

Some interesting tidbits:

The attitude between American Gen Z and their Chinese counterparts is night and day. He complained about the fact that the quality of his graduate students has gotten significantly worse over time. Even a decade ago, the millennial kids were still rather passionate about science and put in an effort to impress, these days the Gen Z kids straight up showed very little passion about what they’re doing, one of his students literally left the lab during the middle of the day to “go home to play video games”. Incidentally, the best students were foreign students who came from outside of Western countries.

In China it couldn’t have been more different. Young graduate students would work 6-7 days a week, many are full of curiosity, all very keen to learn more about the science they are doing. Some labs in China have their lab meetings held on Sunday! Imagine doing that in the US lol.

There is no way the US can catch up with China over the next 1-2 decades. In fact, it is already falling behind in terms of scientific output. Like, how are you ever going to compete with them?