The de-industrialization of America has brought about profound changes in its society and economy. For starters, many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas or to Mexico in pursuit of cheaper labor. Talk radio and some TV shows constantly complain about job outsourcing. However, the more worrisome issue is this: Americans have been shying away from engineering and science educations and careers, causing the inevitable long-term dumbing-down of America. Many American high schools that offer advanced courses in math, physics, and chemistry have few, if any, Anglo students.

Go to any graduate school in America and the number of U.S.-born M.S. and Ph.D. engineering candidates is a small minority, and in some cases non-existent. About a decade ago, in one particular year, all of the electrical engineering graduate students at U.C.-Berkeley, home of the field’s top-ranked program in the nation, were either Chinese nationals or second-generation Chinese.

For Chinese-born professionals in the U.S. it all started after Deng Xiaoping initiated structural changes in the early 1980s, including the freedom to travel abroad. With the science education in China almost second to none, and the huge disparity in income between China and the U.S. (a graduate student in the U.S., even adjusting for the cost of living, could make much more money than a senior professional in China), there was a clear reason for highly qualified Chinese to enter American engineering and graduate programs.

By the late 1980s there were about 500,000 Chinese students at American universities. In June 1989, the demonstrations and massacre at Tiananmen Square occurred, changing the lives of many of those students. Shortly after the Chinese government’s assault on the student protesters, President George H.W. Bush signed an executive order awarding immediate permanent-resident status to 80,000 Chinese who had just completed their studies in the U.S. Subsequently, many more used the same precedent to apply for their green cards.

All those people became immediately available for hire at salaries lower than those of their American counterparts. And they came with math, science, and computing skills that were hard to find. Today, students who are either Chinese citizens or American citizens with Chinese ancestry continue to fill jobs in the energy industry. The oil industry, which has always had a tremendous need for technology and science skills, has been hit particularly hard by the retirement of its skilled workforce and the declining numbers of American-born workers with the needed skills. Chinese engineers have filled many of these vacancies. Indeed, Chinese workers are employed in one of the oil industry’s most sensitive areas: reservoir engineering.

Yu (Lisa) Li, a senior reservoir engineer for BP and a member of the Executive Committee of the Chinese American Petroleum Association (CAPA), estimates that 10,000 Chinese-born professionals are now employed by the oil industry. The members in her group of about 600 are probably representative of Chinese in the industry. More than half of them have Ph.D.s and most of the others hold M.S. degrees, in many cases from some of the most prestigious American universities.

But there is a darker side to this situation. Virtually none of the Chinese Americans in the industry have climbed up the management ladder, even though many have been U.S. citizens for more than 10 years, some working in the industry for nearly two decades.

Chevron’s Lynn Chaou may be the highest-ranking Chinese-born official in the U.S. oil industry. She served as the company’s chief information officer. Chaou is an exception in another way, too: she was born in Taiwan. Mainland China is the birthplace of the vast majority of her Chinese colleagues.

While Chaou has made it to the boardroom, few others have made it to even the first level of management, and are doing essentially the same jobs they were hired for years ago. But rather than climbing the ladder, some Chinese engineers choose to change jobs within the industry, thereby garnering higher pay. And given the record profits being earned by the energy sector, that’s not difficult to do. CAPA’s Li can think of only a handful of Chinese professionals who have been promoted to management positions at BP or Shell. She says that Shell officials have acknowledged the problem, and that the company is making efforts to “bridge the gap.”

The disparity is striking when comparing the careers of the Chinese in the oil industry with their U.S.-born counterparts, or even those born in other countries. Several people interviewed for this story offered the theory that the Chinese educational system, although intense, is very narrow and does not provide the breadth of knowledge needed by managers. Another problem is the difficulty a Chinese speaker has making the transition into English. Many Chinese who have lived in the U.S. for decades still have problems with English grammar, syntax, and pronunciation. Female Chinese professionals seem to be able to adapt more easily than their male colleagues. Perhaps Chinese women, despite their cultural differences, are less threatening to the male-dominated U.S. oil industry.

It is also important to note the galloping Chinese economy and the fact that Chinese oil companies are now some of the most aggressive companies in the world. How long will it take for Chinese-born engineers now working for U.S. companies to begin moving back to China? We talked to a number of Chinese professionals in the U.S. oil industry, and profile three of them below.

Dr. Xiuli Wang, BP

One of the most popular students when she attended the University of Houston, Dr. Xiuli Wang has been with BP for more than six years. In 2000 she received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering, with an emphasis on petroleum related problems, primarily the flow and phase characteristics of natural gas.

A highly respected and widely liked engineer at BP, she has been doing research and development on sand control in the technology group there and, apparently enjoying management’s confidence, is now a project manager with world-wide responsibilities and lots of field interaction. Wang came to the United States in 1995 after getting her B.S. from Dalian University of Technology and an M.S. from Tsinghua University (China’s MIT). Both degrees are in chemical engineering. She spent almost six years teaching at the Beijing Petro-Chemical Institute of Technology under Sinopec before she came to the U.S.

Wang is very self-confident and proud of her accomplishments. As for going back to China, Wang thinks it would be impractical, but she does not preclude it entirely.

Dr. Yizhu Liao, Consultant

Dr. Yizhu Liao, 43, has not followed the same path as his fellow Chinese petroleum engineers. While most of his countrymen have joined big oil companies, Liao is a self-employed consultant who usually works on retainer for single clients. Liao spent almost five years in Venezuela working for PDVSA, and endured the tumult that has shaken the country’s industry during Hugo Chávez’s regime.

Liao obtained both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Southwest Petroleum University in Manchong, China, and after coming to the U.S., he earned a Ph.D. in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M in 1992.

After stints with an engineering consulting firm in Houston and with Schlumberger, he went out on his own. Currently he has a full-time assignment with Shell as a senior reservoir engineer, but it is clear he enjoys his independence and has resisted working permanently for any company.

But there are some shortcomings that he recognizes, even spelling them out himself. While he exudes competence and his answers are clear and to the point, he is hindered by a widespread problem affecting many of his male Chinese peers. He has difficulty articulating anything other than technical issues in English, and is certainly not at the language level of other people with similar educational backgrounds and levels of intellectual sophistication.

He thinks that he is as good a petroleum engineer as any, but he adds that there is always room for improvement. Unlike many of his fellow Chinese in the United States, he is a strong supporter of China’s current policies, arguing that with its ongoing reforms, China is improving rapidly. China’s GDP has been growing by nine percent annually for many years, and the country’s standard of living is increasing.

Regarding the possibility of returning, he thinks it is improbable, mostly because his children are here. His friends in the Chinese oil industry have repeatedly asked him to return to China, but thus far, he continues to refuse. That said, Liao has not ruled out working in China at some point in the future.

Dr. Yan Li, Chevron

Dr. Yan Li is a consultant for reservoir asset management, currently employed by Chevron. She comes from an oilfield family and her father was a distinguished geologist in post-Mao China. She was born in the Yen Chang oilfield but, like many in her generation, she only received a limited education during the Cultural Revolution. She was sent to the countryside for re-education by farmers and peasants. Ultimately, she got her bachelor’s degree from Beijing Petroleum University. She came to the U.S. in 1985 and earned her M.S. from Stanford and her Ph.D. from Oklahoma University, both in petroleum engineering.

Li is typical of Chinese professional women, with a very high opinion of herself and plenty of self-confidence. She told us she “always reaches whatever goals” she sets. In her interview she gave herself a rating of ten out of ten for whatever she does. After the interview, Li sent us a supplementary, unsolicited e-mail listing no fewer than 15 of her strengths.

After graduating from O.U. in 1992, Li started a company-hopping career that included practically every major oil company at the time, first with Bass Enterprises in Denver, followed three years later by Arco in Plano, Texas, until the company was taken over by BP. In 2000, she joined Texaco just before it was taken over by Chevron, and then she moved to Shell. After five years with Shell, she rejoined Chevron earlier this year.

This sojourn has proven financially successful. Li’s pay package is now four times what it was when she started in 1992. Li views her story as one worthy of emulation, and sees herself as a role model for other Chinese. Although a U.S. citizen, she still thinks of herself as mostly Chinese.

What about returning to her home country? She might if the right opportunity arises, but she says it wouldn’t be permanent and would only be on behalf of an American or international company.