Is China A Magnet For Global Talent?
Every year China's schools churn out millions of "stuffed ducks" -- graduates lacking in creativity and problem-solving skills. Yet if China hopes to make up for its brain deficit by wooing overseas-educated Chinese, then it is in for an unpleasant surprise. The REVIEW explores two of China's most pressing human-capital challenges.
Over the past 30 years, the China region has been a great source of human talent to the western world. Much of this supply was drawn from Hong Kong as its residents sought to hedge against the political uncertainties of a 1997 handover. But as the former colony's recession to Chinese sovereignty transpired smoothly, the Hong Kong diaspora began returning to the region.
In mainland China, a similar "brain regain" is currently underway: In 2005, the number of repatriates reached 30,000, up from 7,000 in 1999. Is the heyday of extracting human capital from Greater China over? Is China now a magnet for expatriate human capital, attracting talent that previously stayed overseas?
The Chinese government hopes so. It has been actively encouraging -- at national, provincial, and municipal levels -- the return of overseas scholars to China, cultivating a favorable political climate and culture for repatriating scholars, providing funding to attract returnees.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences now regularly awards fellowships of 2 million yuan ($250,000), 20% of which may go directly towards recipient salaries. Other common benefits include full-tenureship, housing, modern laboratories and equipment, and research teams comprised of (often homegrown) graduate students and research staff.
Another program, the Ministry of Education's "Financial Support for Outstanding Young Professors," awarded 2,218 returning professors a total of 144 million yuan between the late 1980s and 2003. And the Cheung Kong Scholars Program, funded by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, brought home 537 scholars from overseas, between 1998 and 2004, to become leaders in key research fields.
Local governments, too, compete amongst themselves for returning overseas talent. Cities offer myriad incentives to become the preferred destination, including housing discounts, office or factory floor space, jobs for spouses, international schools for children, and residence permits allowing for the retention of foreign citizenship status. Most large cities and county towns will also have specially designated zones for overseas scholars to establish businesses and receive assistance in navigating government bureaucracies. Beijing and Shanghai each have 14 such zones.
But surveys of scientists from four cities -- Wuhan, Kunming, Guangzhou and Changsha -- have shown that only a few repatriated scholars cite these recruitment efforts as a key reason for returning to China. More important, according to the surveys, were good government policies and political stability. In the summer of 2004, we interviewed 100 repatriated entrepreneurs in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Many believed that introducing new technology to China -- even if it is not cutting-edge by global standards -- can reap rich profits in the mainland. It seems that the rewards in China's domestic market, rather than government policy, have been the key attraction. Clearly, this is a powerful force in the reverse brain drain. This suggests that the government's impact has been indirect at best.
What about the quality of the returnees? Has China been successful in attracting the return of its best and brightest? Data do not tend to support this hypothesis. Rather, the theory is that those returning to China tend to have first been unsuccessful overseas. The Director of a CAS research institute in Northeast China has said that while the people he attracts usually fall into the top 50% to 80% of overseas scholars, the top 20% still remain abroad. Rao Yi, a neurologist at Northwestern University in Illinois claims that, in terms of international reputation and prestige, few returning scholars are of comparable quality to those who stay abroad. He believes that there are between 800 to 1,000 scientists of Chinese origin running independent labs in the U.S., and that these people are unlikely to return.
Our findings tend to support Mr. Rao's observations. In fact, surveys have shown that only a few scholars returning to China had to sacrifice high salaries or stable, tenured positions, and even fewer were returning with patents for innovative research. What's more, getting the very talented to return is just the first step; getting them to stay is another matter altogether.
So how to account for the number of returning graduates? According to government officials, 50% of the 30,000 returnees in 2005 only completed an undergraduate or one-year master's degree, usually in Britain. With few prospects and little training for jobs, these relatively unskilled graduates then have no choice but to return to China. Contrary to popular belief, these are not the cutting-edge scientists, scholars or entrepreneurs that will propel China to the fore of the global economy. At best they can fill middle-level positions in the administrative hierarchy, or entry-level jobs in the commercial sector. Pejoratively called "seaweed" or hai dai (in contrast to hai gui, or "sea turtles," which habitually return to their birthplace but are of higher quality and value) by jealous people who had not gone overseas, these repatriates are as much a burden as a benefit to the Chinese state.
So why is the government so concerned about this situation? Preliminary research suggests that many unemployed returnees are children of recently retired government officials who invested their life savings in their only child. Many of these returnees are in their late twenties, their parents approaching retirement. But instead of bringing their parents security, these children face great difficulties even in finding lower paying jobs. In my own discussions with Chinese officials, I point out that this problem is the result of a market failure, not of government policy, and that the market will adjust by discouraging young people from continuing to take this route. But local and central officials remain unconvinced.
Recruitment efforts by personnel bureaus in many municipalities have been unsuccessful. Encouraging entrepreneurial ventures have likewise been fruitless, given the dearth of entrepreneurial skills.
Much official anger is targeted at the United Kingdom, which treats Chinese youths as a source of foreign exchange for low quality British universities, but then abandons them upon graduation, forcing them to return to China with little professional training. This is contrasted to the situation in Canada, where a large contingent of Chinese doctorate graduates with professional experience is experiencing a glass ceiling and culture clash, together making China seem attractive again.
Clearly China's government has successfully created an environment attractive to repatriation. As the number of self-paying students increases, a certain percent will inevitably also have to come back. Moreover, according to a recent report by McKinsey, China is facing a shortfall in high-quality engineers, opening real opportunities for those who have studied abroad.
But as the discussion of hai dai shows, do not be persuaded by numbers alone; China appears to be entering a new period where increased flows of overseas students and returnees will bring with them new problems for China.
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Mr. Zweig is chair professor and division of social science director at the Center on China's Transnational Relations at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
中国已成为吸引全球人才的磁石？
过去30年中，大中华区一直是西方世界一个巨大的人才来源。输出的人才主要来自香港，香港人为躲避1997年主权移交而产生的政治不确定性纷纷远走他乡。但随著主权移交工作的顺利进行，迁居海外的香港人又开始回流。
在中国大陆，一场类似的“凤还巢”大戏也正在上演。2005年，从海外回流的人才达到3万人，大大高于1999年时的7,000人。从大中华地区榨取人力资本的黄金岁月结束了吗？中国现在是否已经成了一块磁石，吸引那些以往滞留海外的人才纷纷回归？
中国政府希望如此。从中央到地方，各级政府一直在积极鼓励海外的中国学者返回祖国，它们纷纷在营造适合海外归来学者的政治环境和文化氛围，还向这些“海归”提供资助。
中国科学院(Chinese Academy of Sciences)目前会向其从海外引进的人才提供人民币200万元（25万美元）的资助，其中20%可直接成为受资助人的工资。引进人才都可获得的其他待遇还包括提供终身职务、住房，配备现代化实验室和实验设备、由研究生（往往是国内培养的）和其他研究人员组成的研究团队等。
另外一个计划──教育部(Ministry of Education)的“优秀青年教师资助计划”在上世纪80年代末至2003年期间共奖励了2,218名归国教师人民币1.44亿元。而香港亿万富翁李嘉诚资助的“长江学者奖励计划”在1998年至2004年间吸引了537名学者从海外回国，他们多成为重要研究领域的学术带头人。
地方政府也在竞相吸引海外人才。不少城市推出了大量鼓励措施，希望自己能成为海外人才的首选目的地，这些措施包括提供住房补贴、提供办公或工厂用地、解决配偶的工作、为孩子提供国际学校、允许保留外国公民身份的居住证，等等。多数大城市和省城还设立专区，为海外学者建立企业提供一站式服务。北京和上海各有14个这样的专区。
但对武汉、昆明、广州和长沙4个城市的科学家进行的调查显示，只有为数不多的归国学者将这些优惠措施视为回国的主要原因。调查结果显示，学者们更看重良好的政府政策和政治的稳定。2004年夏季，我们在北京、上海和广州采访了100位归国企业家。多数人认为，向中国大陆引进新技术──哪怕是按世界标准衡量并非最领先的技术──将能获得丰厚的利润。看来是中国国内市场的魅力，而不是政府的政策更具有吸引力。显然，这是人才回流的重要力量，同时也说明政府的影响最多也是间接的。
归国人员的素质如何？中国是否成功地吸引了最优秀的人才回国？数据看来并未支持这种论断。而且，有种看法认为，回国的都是在国外不大成功的人。中国科学院东北一家研究所的所长表示，他吸引到的通常是海外学者里的中流人才，排名前20%的人才仍会选择留在海外。伊利诺伊州西北大学(Northwestern University)的神经学家饶毅说，就国际知名度和声望而言，归国学者在素质上很难同仍留在海外的人相比。他认为，在美国有800到1,000名来自中国的科学家拥有独立的实验室，这些人不太可能回国。
我们的发现支持了饶毅的观察。实际上，调查显示只有少部分“海归”是牺牲了高工资或稳定的工作而回国的，其中拥有创新研究专利的人就更少之又少。而且，让高级人才归国只是第一步，而留住他们则是另外一回事了。
那么归国学子的数字说明了什么呢？政府官员称，在2005年回国的3万人中，有50%只完成了本科或一年制硕士教育（一般是在英国）。由于前途渺茫和基本没有接受过就业培训，这些相对缺乏技能的人别无选择，只有回国。同流行的看法相反，这些人并不是掌握了先进技术、能够推动中国置身全球经济前沿的科学家、学者或企业家。他们最多只能担任中层管理职务，或是在商业领域从事入门级的工作。从未出过国的人嫉妒地将他们称为“海带”（而具有更高素质和价值，出于生活习惯的原因回国的人则被称为“海龟”），他们对中国既是负担，也是收获。
那么政府为何对这种情况格外关注呢？
初步的研究显示，许多归国失业人员都是刚刚退休的政府官员的孩子，这些人将他们一生的存款都花到了唯一的孩子身上。许多这类归国人员都已二十七、八岁，父母已近退休年龄。但这些孩子要找一份收入较低的工作都很困难，更不用说给父母带来安全了。在我本人同中国官员的交谈中，我指出这个问题是市场失败的结果，而非政府方面的错误，市场将会阻止年轻人继续走这条道路。但地方和中央政府的官员并未认同这个看法。
许多城市人事局的招聘措施都不够成功。由于缺乏创业技能，鼓励创业的风险投资都多没有成果。
许多官员将此归咎于英国，那里只将中国学生视为劣质大学的外汇收入来源，他们一毕业即遭抛弃，只能在没有接受什么职业培训的情况下回到中国。这种情况同加拿大形成了反差，那里许多具有职场经验的中国博士毕业生都遭遇了升迁上的玻璃天花板和文化冲突，这使中国再次对他们具有了吸引力。
显然，中国政府成功营造了吸引海外学子归国的氛围。随著自费学生的增加，一部分学生也不可避免地将会回国。而且，根据麦肯锡公司(McKinsey & Co.)最近的研究报告，中国正面临高素质工程师的短缺，这为海外学子创造了真正的机会。
但正如对“海带”的讨论所显示的那样，不要仅仅相信数据；中国似乎正在进入一个新阶段，海外学生和归国人员的增加将给中国带来新的问题。
