About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

145 Int'l Lab. Rev. 65 (2006)
Competing for Talent: China's Strategies to Reverse the Brain Drain

handle is hein.journals/intlr145 and id is 73 raw text is: International Labour Review, Vol. 145 (2006), No. 1-2 Competing for talent: China's strategies to reverse the brain drain David ZWEIG* F or many years, governments and scholars have been bemused by brain drains that rob developing countries of their valuable human talent, as their best and brightest people who go abroad to study opt to stay in the developed world (Dickson, 2003). Despite its authoritarian regime, the People's Republic of China has been just as vulnerable to this phenomenon. In recent years, however, tens of thousands of people trained abroad have been returning to China. During the mid- to late-1990s, the average annual increase in the number of returnees was approximately 13 per cent, but since 2000, the rate of increase has risen sharply (see figure 1). According to Saravia and Miranda (2004, p. 608), this is also reflected in a sustained drop in the number of doctoral students from China ... who planned to remain in the United States beginning in the late 1990s. Admittedly, liberaliza- tion of China's policy on travel overseas has also led to a massive increase in the number of people going abroad, so the proportion of returnees has not increased. But China still looks set to follow the path of the Republic of Korea and Taiwan (China), where a thriving economy and liberalized polity turned a brain drain into a brain gain - although China's return migration has picked up despite its authoritarian regime and low per- capita income. * Director, Center on China's Transnational Relations, and Chair Professor, Division of Social Sciences, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. This article is based on a pres- entation given at the conference on Competing for global talent (Singapore Management Uni- versity, Singapore, 13-14 January 2005) and reproduced in Kuptsch and Pang (2006, pp. 187-213). It is part of a larger study carried out in collaboration with Professor Stanley Rosen of the Uni- versity of Southern California, Los Angeles, and Professor Chen Changgui of Zhongshan University, Guangzhou, China. The research was funded by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Research assistance was provided by Dr. Chung Siu Fung. Copyright © International Labour Organization 2006

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most