“By loosening rules on visa requirements, allowing dual citizenship or issuing more green cards, China could definitely create more favourable conditions for high-level personnel to return. The expertise and knowledge of this group of people would definitely help advance China’s development in all sectors.”
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High-flyers find success at home after returning from overseas
Al Guo
10 December 2008
The mainland economy has had more than just cheap exports to offer the world this year.
Justin Yifu Lin , one of the nation’s best known and most respected technocrats, took up an appointment this year as chief economist at the World Bank.
His appointment has been seen by many as a welcome move in turbulent financial times.
Mr. Lin is best known for his work on the mainland’s rural economy and for swimming more than 2km from Taiwanese-controlled Quemoy to defect to the mainland in 1979.
But one other attribute sets him apart - he was the first mainland student to not only be awarded a doctoral degree in economics from the US but to return to China to work, which he did in 1987.
He belongs to a select group of students known as overseas returnees who, in the past 30 years since the doors were opened to the outside world, have completed their studies in other countries and headed back to the mainland to pursue their careers.
Mr. Lin initially found it tough to convince people that he would return.
“When I wrote letters to the government, nobody bothered to answer me, because I think none of them really believed I would be back,” Mr. Lin said in an earlier interview.
But Mr. Lin did go back with his family and later started an economics research centre at Peking University.
He went on to become one of the top experts on rural economics.
Beijing started the overseas study programme in 1978 after former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping told a meeting at Tsinghua University that the country had to send its students abroad to learn from developed countries.
Thousands of students were selected to study abroad in the following decade, mainly in the US and western Europe, but few returned. They were deterred by concerns about the mainland’s relatively weak economy and the crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy movement.
The real surge in the number of overseas returnees came in the 1990s. Led by the high-profile return of Chen Zhangliang to Peking University as a biology professor, Chinese students started to rethink their mainland career prospects.
As the mainland’s economic reforms continued in the 1990s, many mainlanders studying abroad realised that the economic gap between their homeland and the west was narrowing.
Zhang Chaoyang, chief executive of popular web hub Sohu.com, returned to the mainland in 1995 with around US$500,000 in venture capital, and built his company from scratch.
Another returned overseas student, Li Yanhong, created an online empire by launching Baidu.com, the mainland’s version of Google.
The tide of returnees has also yielded political stars such as central bank deputy governor Yi Gang, Science and Technology Minister Wan Gang, and Gao Xiqing, president of China Investment Corporation, China’s sovereign fund.
Zhang Weidong, who received a doctorate in telecommunications in France in 1991, was “lucky enough” to be sent to work in the Beijing office of an international telecommunications company.
“You simply had no idea what you could do back in China in the early 1990s. Being sent back here by a foreign company was the most secure way to return,” said Mr. Zhang, now vice-president of human resources in Asia for energy company Areva.
He saw the 1990s as a crucial window for the first generation of overseas students returning to China.
If they missed the window, as many of Mr. Zhang’s classmates did, it would be hard for them to abandon their achievements in their host countries.
“While they were young and had no deep roots in the host countries, returning to China was easy. But after having kids and owning your own home, it could be extremely scary to even think about leaving all your comforts behind and moving back to China,” Mr. Zhang said.
“There is no doubt they would risk losing everything by returning to China and restarting their careers, but at the same time a successful return would reward them with something none of them could ever think of by staying in their host countries.”
According to the Ministry of Education, about 320,000 mainland students who studied overseas returned home between 1978 and 2007, and a further 50,000 or so are expected to head back this year because of a lack of job opportunities elsewhere.
There are no official numbers for those who do not return but some estimates are as high as 90 per cent.
Shao Wei, director of the ministry’s overseas students’ centre, said the flow of overseas students back to the mainland reflected the country’s steady economic development in the past three decades.
“Generally speaking, overseas students will go to places where excellent employment opportunities exist. China is right now the land of opportunity with plenty of upside potential in economic development,” Mr. Shao said.
Wang Huiyao, director of the Western Returned Scholars Association, also saw the increased number of overseas returnees as a sign of China’s booming economy. Mr. Wang said China could draw more back by updating some rules and regulations.
“They understand the western-style regulations while they know this society very well. So when more and more western companies come to the country, overseas students no doubt have the upper hand in landing a job there,” he said in an online interview with the People’s Daily.
“By loosening rules on visa requirements, allowing dual citizenship or issuing more green cards, China could definitely create more favourable conditions for high-level personnel to return. The expertise and knowledge of this group of people would definitely help advance China’s development in all sectors.”
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