On January 16, 2025, the East Asian Studies Center a lecture by Dr. David Zweig titled “The War for Chinese Talent in America.” This talk was based on his research presented in a recently-published book of the same name. During his talk, Prof. Zweig highlighted struggles of Chinese scientists, professors, and entrepreneurs, as well as students in America as conflicts arise between the two nations. He started by providing a summary of how the Chinese state has, over the last 15 years, implemented incentives to gain knowledge and training from Chinese trained abroad, especially in the US. This was followed by a description of the Trump Administration’s “China Initiative” that was put into place in 2018. Dr. Zweig outlined the harm this brought to professors and researchers alike, presenting numerous anecdotes on how Chinese scholars were treated unfairly. He also showed the harm tensions presented to the collaborations of the greater scientific community.