China Trying To Lure Tech Talent Back Home
from the roll-out-the-red-carpet dept
During the boom years I remember reading plenty of articles about countries (usually in Asia) worried about the “brain drain” to the US. Their best and brightest would come to the US to study, and then stick around for jobs. Now that the downturn has slowed the American economy, China is seeing it as an opportunity to get those people back. They’re going all out in recruiting Chinese-born people, now living in the US. A friend who recently returned from a year in China said that China felt like the early “exciting” years of the dot com boom in Silicon Valley, so that could be a draw for people who miss that excitement (though, if it means they’ll have to live through another crash, I could see it being a deterrant). However, the government is also offering things like free housing, a car and driver, and other “perks” for people returning from the US to work in China. I wonder if other countries will follow suit – and how many people will take them up on their offers.
Comments on “China Trying To Lure Tech Talent Back Home”
They've been doing this for years
If foreign governments want to have more success luring engineers back, they should look in less attractive locations within the USA.
When I went to grad school in Pittsburgh, PA, every single foreign student I met absolutely hated living in the USA and couldn’t wait to go home. It was the combination of an unattractive blue-collar city, plus less elite foreign students who had to live there. They thought I was “incredible” and somehow lying because I knew that Beijing is the capital of China.
As for other countries copying China
They either
1. don’t have the money (Russia, Cambodia)
2. already have plenty of returning emigres (India, Pakistan, Taiwan)
3. don’t care (Japan, Korea)
There is also some resentment against returning emigres as “traitors,” “carpetbaggers,” or “not
real _____-ese”. Kids of such families will probably get picked on a lot in school, even by the teachers. International schools would snub such kids too, as “natives” or “just immigrants”.