Keeping China’s best and brightest at home
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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