Keeping China's best and brightest
at home By Kent Ewing
HONG KONG - As Western countries worry
over China's rise on the international stage, they
hold a key advantage in the competition for power
and influence: many of China's best and brightest
go abroad for a university education, enjoy their
lives in the West, and never return home to share
their knowledge and expertise with the motherland.
A recent study by the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences (CASS), the nation's top
think-tank, shows that China is losing more
first-rate minds to the West than any other
country in the
world. The phenomenon amounts
to a new form of colonialism in which Western
countries exploit intellectual talent rather than
raw materials.
China is not the only
victim of this international form of
brain-picking, but it tops the list. More than 70%
of the Chinese students who go abroad to study
don't return home, according to the study. Of the
1.06 million Chinese who have traveled overseas to
study since 1978, CASS found that only 275,000
have returned.
And despite torrid economic
growth of nearly 10% for the past three decades,
the problem does not seem to be getting any
better. In 2005, 118,500 students left China for
study abroad. By 2010, 200,000 are expected to
enroll in foreign universities.
All told,
according to CASS, the Chinese diaspora holds 35
million people scattered in more than 150
countries, making China the world's largest source
of emigrants.
Yang Xiaojing, one of the
authors of the study, was pleased by the
international competitiveness of Chinese students
but worried about the country's future if the
brain drain continues.
"This shows that
Chinese students overseas, especially those with
extraordinary abilities, are a real hit in the
global tug-of-war for talent," he told the
state-run China Daily. "While strictly controlling
the inflow of foreign labor to protect the
interests of [their] domestic workforce, most
developed countries spare no effort to attract the
best talent from around the world."
Yang
added this warning: "Against a backdrop of
economic globalization, an excessive brain drain
will inevitably threaten the human-resources
security and eventually the national economic and
social security of any country."
Previously, Beijing had embraced the
concept of "brain circulation". The aim was for
students to study in the West and then bring back
their expertise to China for the advancement of
the motherland. In addition, emigration reduced
competition in the job market, which is cutthroat
for university graduates in China, and brain drain
seemed of no great consequence in a country where
last week 10 million students sat the annual
university entrance exam. Emigration also brings
US$20 billion in annual remittances to the country
from Chinese living overseas, according to a 2006
United Nations report.
But with seven of
every 10 students remaining abroad while China
suffers from a dearth of expertise in important
sectors of the economy, the thinking in Beijing
has changed. Now the government is offering
incentives for students and professionals to
return. Issued in March, these include exempting
professionals in undermanned fields - science,
engineering, and corporate management stand out -
from the burdensome hukou (house
registration) system, which can limit where a
person lives and works.
Low-interest loans
and higher salaries are also being offered to
returnees, as well as coveted places for their
children in the country's most prestigious
universities. The Ministry of Personnel has even
called for "a talent security alarm system" to
monitor emigration.
Meanwhile, the
diaspora continues to expand. What will it take to
persuade those who are potentially some of China's
best and brightest stars to come home?
"Of
the many reasons for the brain drain of Chinese
students," the CASS study said, "huge social and
economic gaps in terms of personal income,
employment opportunities, working conditions,
research facilities and living standards are the
main ones."
Put plainly, talented
graduates can make a lot more money outside China,
enjoy a better work environment, avoid rampant
corruption, and plan a family without worrying
about the one-child policy.
Emigrants must
also be daunted by the unemployment rate for
university graduates in China. Since 2002, it has
averaged 30%. Part of the problem is the education
system itself, which has been unable to keep up
with the rapidly changing needs of Chinese
society. There is a shortage of qualified faculty
and courses in finance, management, information
technology and other fields that are in growing
demand in the booming Chinese economy. At the same
time, there are far too many graduates in the
humanities and social sciences who battle for jobs
in a glutted market.
The potential for
social unrest among unemployed students rightly
worries the Chinese leadership. Those worries must
have been heightened last week when a riot ensued
after a female student was beaten by city
inspectors for illegally selling fashion
accessories on a street in Zhengzhou, the capital
of Henan province. The rioters were mostly other
students from different universities in Zhengzhou.
The Zhengzhou incident is a painful
reminder that the Chinese educational system is
caught in a difficult catch-up game with the
country's runaway economy. It is no wonder that
gifted students opt to go abroad and that, once
there, many choose not to return.
Despite
the large numbers, however, the Chinese emigration
problem pales when compared in percentages with
places in the developing world. World Bank figures
show that a quarter to half of university-educated
professionals in the world's poorest countries
live abroad, and the figure is as high as 80% in
Haiti and Jamaica. The brain drain is
particularly acute in Africa, a continent that
will need its educated professional class if it is
to rise out of its post-colonial mire of poverty
and corruption. But how can a country like Ghana
cope with the challenge when 47% of its
university-educated citizens live abroad? Things
will also be tough in Mozambique, which has lost
45% of its educated class, and in Kenya (38%),
Somalia and Angola (both 33%).
The list
goes on. Indeed, there are more African scientists
in the United States than in all of the 54
countries of Africa.
It is hard to blame
students for fleeing their impoverished homelands
for greener educational pastures when 90% of the
world's funding for research and development in
higher education goes to the US, Britain,
Australia, Germany and Japan. Developing countries
simply cannot compete in the global contest for
talent. In an age where, more than ever, knowledge
equals power and wealth, this amounts to a new
form of colonialism holding poor countries back.
While in sheer numbers the world's most
populous countries - China and India - appear to
suffer the most from brain drain, studies show
they lose only about 5% of their graduates. For
China, however, that has become too much as it
sorely needs the expertise of many of its citizens
living abroad.
No doubt a Shanghai survey
published this year in the Labor Daily has added
to official concern. The survey showed that 36.9%
of the city's middle-school students hope to
become US citizens one day.
Kent
Ewing is a teacher and writer at Hong Kong
International School. He can be reached at
kewing@hkis.edu.hk.
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