Reducing global AI competition through the Commerce Control List and Immigration reform: a dual-pronged approach

One disadvantage of your second proposal is that it rewards people who chose to prepare themselves to do AI research or AI development, which in turn incentivizes young people who have not yet chosen a career path to choose AI. (It is impractical to hide from the young people the news that AI researchers have been rewarded with US citizenship.) I would prefer a policy that punishes people for choosing to prepare themselves to be AI researchers, e.g., a policy that puts any Chinese national who studies AI at a university or gets a job as an AI researcher or apprentice AI researcher on a sanctions list maintained by the US government similar to the list of Russian entities who participated in the invasion of Ukraine!

Your first proposal is fine with me, particularly if China retaliates by imposing strict controls on the transfer of AI knowledge to the US: I'm for almost any restriction on the flow of knowledge useful for advancing AI between any 2 populations.