这篇英文文章，是我最近参加由美国普林斯顿大学，普林斯顿-哈佛中国和世界项目，宾州大学和世界银行联合举办的“全球人才流动”论坛，在大会上的发言部分内容和对大会主旨发言人香港科技大学中国跨国关系研究中心主任David Zweig 教授观点的所写的评价和分析，已收入论坛出版专辑。

Introduction

To better understand the growing role of internationally mobile Chinese human capital on local and global politics and economics, I attended the symposium organized by The Policy Research Institute of the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University as a panellist. This was an excellent and timely conference to examine the circulation of highly-skilled ("knowledge") workers from China and India and their impacts on both the source and receiving countries. I particularly liked that the organizers has arranged for this conference to be held simultaneously in Princeton, Washington, Shanghai and New Delhi, making it a truly global conference on such an important global issue.

Hereafter, I will comment on the paper presented by Dr. David Zweig, Director of the Center on China's Transnational Relations at The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. Zweig’s paper, “The Mobility of Chinese Human Capital: The View from the United States,” outlined some recent characteristics of the movement of talented Chinese and made some predictions about the pattern for the Chinese diaspora and returnees. From his paper, I have come to some additional conclusions.    

China Becomes a Major Source of the Movement of World Talent

Since China adopted its “open door policy” in 1978, Chinese students and scholars have gone aboard to study and many have stayed abroad, gradually becoming a important force both in China and overseas, particularly in the US. Recently each year, over 100,000 Chinese students go aboard to study and by the end of 2006, over one million Chinese students and scholars will have gone abroad to study.

Zweig’s paper takes note of this phenomenon and mentions that Chinese people are on the move, leaving China in record numbers—to study and to migrate—while those who have studied abroad are returning in record numbers as well. In the past few years, the number of returnees has increased drastically. In 2005, the number jumped from 25,000 to 30,000, an increase of 15% in one year. This return flow has greatly benefited China, helping it emerge as a global economic power. and China needs large number of well trained and globally oriented Chinese to help the country innovate and connect to the outside world.

However, China is not only gaining large number of returnees, but is becoming an important sending country, providing talent not only for China, but also for the world. Looking at the past 10 years (see table below), while the absolute number of returnees is increasing, the percentage staying abroad, and therefore the total number of Chinese in the diaspora, is increasing even more.

Year     No. of Students     No. of Students   % Returned    % Stay Overseas

1996          270                    89                    32.9%          67.1%

1997          296                    96                    32.4%          67.6%

1998          302                    99                    32.7%          67.3%

1999          320                    112                   35%            65%

2000          340                    130                   38.2%          61.8%

2001          460                    135                   29.3%          70.7%

2002          585                    153                   26.2%          73.8%

2003          700                    178                   25.4%          74.6%

2004          814                    198                   24.3%          75.7%

 

Sources：China Statistics Year Book (1996-2005). Figures published by the Chinese Ministry of Education.

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By the end of 2005, the number of students and scholars staying overseas reached over 75 percent, meaning that over three quarters of the Chinese students or scholars are still overseas, and mostly in the United States. Therefore the size of the Chinese diaspora is increasing, showing that China has become a major provider of human capital for the world. I agree with Zweig that America has been a major beneficiary of this outflow from China. In the 1980s and 1990s, the United States was the country of choice for most Chinese who wanted to study aboard. After 9/11 in 2001, US government tightened the process of issuing visas to Chinese students and the trend of going to USA slowed. But, in the last two years, the momentum has picked up again after the presidents of many well known American universities complained that they could not recruit enough Chinese students. In November 2005, U.S. Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, took a number of American university presidents to China. At that time, she announced that in 2005 more than 62,000 Chinese students were studying in the U.S, the number of student and exchange visas issued in 2004 had reached an all-time high of nearly 600,000, and that student visas were up 15 percent.(1) 

So China has become a major source of world talent and China and the US, as well as the rest of the world, are benefiting from this new momentum of highly skilled human talent that is circulating in the 21 century.   

China Needs More Entrepreneurial Engagers 

 One of the very interesting concepts Zweig proposes in his research is “who are the engagers.” What are the characteristics of mainlanders in Silicon Valley who were more deeply engaged with China? Zweig argues that Chinese who own their own firms, or have been entrepreneurs in the US, were more likely to engage with China.

One of the major strategies for US-trained returnees is to start a new business in China. However, very few studies of mainland returned entrepreneurs analyze their engagement in China, particularly studies which measure some characteristics of their engagement in China. Zweig’s research on Chinese returnees has broken new ground for this less researched area. His findings are quite meaningful as they echo my current research on entrepreneurial start-ups in China. For example, for 33 NASDAQ-listed high tech firms coming out of China, almost all were started by returnees and most of them studied in the US or set up companies there. They have contributed significantly to the Chinese economy. In our association, the returnees from Silicon Valley all started new companies in China. Zweig also finds that a significant amount of technology is transferred by the returning entrepreneurs, who are benefiting from the booming domestic market in China. This is also true. My research shows that over 70 percent of returned entrepreneurs are in the Hi-Tech and internet sectors, making the technology sector the most preferable, where returnees have a competitive edge.  

China needs more entrepreneurial “engagers.” On the occasion of the 90^th anniversary of the founding of the China Western Returned Scholars Association, Chinese President Hu Jintao pointed out that many returnees repay the country by setting up a company.(2) Today, many of China’s top internet firms, IT firms, and other hi-tech firms have played leading roles in China’s economy by connecting it to the outside world. As societies internationalize, the demand for, and the value of, various goods and services increase. Chinese in the diaspora and returnees who possess new ideas, technology, information and international financial capital that abets globalization become imbued with what Zweig et.al. calls “transnational social capital,” making them more valuable to China and rest of the world.(3)

The Chinese Diaspora and the Returnees’ Role for the US

I fully agree with Zweig’s conclusion that China benefits from its active diaspora and that despite the “brain drain,” China is reaping some of the benefits of “brain circulation.” However, I disagree with Zweig’s hypothesis that the U.S. may not benefit more from “brain circulation” than other societies, because he finds that returnees from the US, as compared to returnees from the Rest of the World (RROW) are less likely to engage in trade between their former host and home countries. The different view may come from the research sample. Zweig’s conclusion comes mainly from returnees with firms in China who mainly concentrate on the domestic market and, therefore, less likely to engage in trade between the two counties. However, a large number of returnees to China play a very important role for Fortune 500 firms and other US multinational firms and they conduct large amounts of trade between China and the US. For example, Motorola exports 70 percent of its all mobile phone products from China and Motorola has hired several hundred returnees for its middle and top management in China. Most influential returnees who set up business in China are listed in the US and play a significant role connecting America’s financial and hi-tech market to China’s fast growing economy. Furthermore, a large number of Chinese academics in the US are providing fresh talent to the increasingly important, American academic institutions. Therefore, I believe that America is benefiting equally from the Chinese diaspora and from the returnees. Brain circulation is benefiting both countries—after all, we all live in the 21^st century’s “flat world.”  

Conclusion

Overall, Zweig’s argument and research is very original, timely, and useful, with rich data analysis and a comparative perspective. It sheds new light on the increasingly important issue of the global movement of human talent, particularly on the continuous impact of China’s growing diaspora and the returnees. This kind of study is useful in helping the business community and policy makers to better understand this new phenomenon of the movement of Chinese into and out of the diaspora, which significantly benefits China, the US and the rest of the world. And, their impact will continue to be seen in the coming decades.

Notes:

(1)   Web page of the United States Embassy, Beijing, “China: Prepared Remarks for U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings at Beijing Normal University,” Nov. 16, 2005.

(2)   China Xinhua News Agency Report, October 8, 2003.

(3) David Zweig, Chen Changgui and Stanley Rosen, “Globalization and transnational human capital: Overseas and returnee scholars to China,” The China Quarterly, Vol. 179, No. 1 (Sept. 2004): 735-757.

References:

Saxenian (2004). Annalee Saxenian, “From Brain Drain to Brain Circulation: Transnational Communities and Regional Upgrading in India and China,” Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Summer 2005): 35-61.

Wang, 2005. Wang Huiyao, “Research on the Characteristics and Contributions of Chinese Start-up Returnees,” paper for the Conference Proceedings of the China Western Returned Scholars Annual Conference, October 28, 2005, Beijing, China, pp. 1-6.  

Wang, 2004. Wang Huiyao, Pioneering in China—50 Business Start-ups by Western Trained Returnees (Beijing: China Central Compilation & Translation Press, 2004, in Chinese).

Wang, 2004. Wang Huiyao, Returning Times—An Overall Review and Examination on Chinese Returnees (Beijing: China Central Compilation & Translation Press, 2004, in Chinese).  

Zweig, 2006. David Zweig, “The Mobility of Chinese Human Capital: The View from the United States,” paper prepared for the Conference on “The Movement of Global Talent,” Policy Research Institute for the Region, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, December 7-8, 2006.