Bringing the Party Back In:
The CCP in China's Search for Talent
David Zweig
Chair Professor, Division of Social Science
Director, Center on Environment, Energy and Resource Policy
Associate Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
========================================
University of Southern California, US-China Institute, 15 January 2013
==========================================
Forthcoming as:
David Zweig and Wang Huiyao, “Can China Bring Back the Best?
The Communist Party Organizes China’s Search for Talent,” The China
Quarterly
Introduction
• For some fortunate developing countries, the
international flow of their human talent has recently been
more of a "reverse brain drain" than a brain drain.
• South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and India have a "brain
gain."
• China joined the group of states whose students, after
going abroad to study, now find sufficient opportunity and
an acceptable quality of life back home to make returning
after graduation a reasonable option.
• Why this shift? Is it purely economic growth, creating new
opportunities for people with talent, capital, and
technology?
• Or has the state played a critical role in this important
change in national development?
Triggering a “Reverse Brain Drain”
• Under the New Economics of Labour Migration (NELM) School,
migration as short-term, conscious strategy where a family member
goes abroad to enhance their human capital and returns after
increasing it.
• Government incentives can motivate people who want to do well to
come home if the environment is right.
• Particularly, entrepreneurs would be potential reverse migrants.
Government Role in the Flow of Human Talent
• Governments can deregulate controls on human movement,
lower transaction costs of reverse migration.
• give dual passports or long-term residence cards for
nationals with foreign citizenship.
• The Korean state began the return migration in 1975,
• Taiwan created a special organization to encourage return
migration.
• Governments can create high tech zones, with tax breaks,
discount floor space, and help entering the local market.
• Improve overall scientific climate by investing in and
promoting science, education and economic growth and
pour funds into these sectors.
• Newland: to facilitate circular migration,
governments must at a minimum create an
"enabling environment in the country of origin.”
• “The most fundamental (and most difficult)
elements of this are establishment of the rule of
law, property rights, open and transparent
government, lack of corruption and other
attributes of good governance, including dual
citizenship or eliminating visa requirements for
members of the diaspora who are citizens of
another country.“
•
Cerase: state must overcome “bias” against
returnees at national, institutional or individual
level.
First 25 Years: Limited Success
• Role of CCP sporadic, key work by ministries of
Education, Personnel, and Science and by CAS.
• CAS' "100 Talents Program,” awarded 2 million
RMB, bought equipment, funded labs,
supplemented returnee’s salary (by 20%).
• Recipients given authority over research team in
their lab.
• By 2004, 100 Talent’s Program brought back 899.
• Key academics award is Cheung Kong Scholar,
funded by MOE and Li Kai-hsing--by 2004, 537.
• NSFC Distinguished Scholars Program, 1994-2004,
brought back 1176 scientists and researchers.
Municipality’s Policies
• More than 100 cities established incubators
for overseas entrepreneurs in new high tech
zones and some invested in these companies.
• Cities offered special incentives, such as tax
free purchases of new equipment and cars,
free floor space in the incubator,
• in some cases, company managing returned
entrepreneurs’ incubator invested funds in
the new start up.
Jiang Era Policy Changes
• Jiang accepted that China’s talent is part of global
talent pool.
• Chinese government needed to let its talent go
abroad to increase the value of its human capital
and then compete with other countries in the
global marketplace for this now enhanced talent.
• Zhu Rongji, September 2001, “henceforth China
would change the emphasis of the open policy from
attracting foreign capital to attracting human
talent and technology.”
Success and Problems  Mixed Outcome
• China's science recovered quickly in the early-, mid-1980s, as
hundreds of Visiting Scholars returned to universities and
research institutes after 2 years abroad.
• They had worked on cutting edge equipment in the labs
overseas. In 1983, World Bank gave loans to purchase similar
equipment to what they had used in the West.
• They used this knowledge and funding from abroad to build
many new key national laboratories.
• However, return flow stopped after June 4th, 1989 which
dealt China a terrible blow
• many researchers who had received Western PhDs in the
1980s stay abroad.
The Emergence of a Mainland Diaspora
June 4th creates instant diaspora of Chinese talent overseas.
Figure 1: Non-U.S. citizens awarded doctorates in science
and engineering: PRC, Taiwan and India, 1998-2002
3000
2500
2000
PRC
1500
1000
500
0
1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Source: Science and Engineering Doctorate Awards, 2002 (SRS Home Page, October 2003).
Taiwan
India
Table 2. Number and percent of Asian S&E doctoral
recipients with firm plans to stay in U.S., 1988-96
Location
Asia
(total)
Total
S&E
PhDs
% with
Total with
Firm
Firm plans Plans
Postdoc
study
%
Total
Employed
%
43,171
16956
39.3
9766
22.6
7189
16.7
PRC
16,550
7930
47.9
5085
30.7
2845
17.2
India
7,843
4291
54.7
1828
23.3
2463
31.4
Korea
8,851
2002
22.6
1505
17.0
497
5.6
Taiwan
9,927
2733
27.5
1348
13.6
1384
13.9
Problems in Chinese Academy of Sciences
• "100 Talents Program" brought back mostly researchers who
had only finished a PhD or a post-doctoral fellowship abroad.
• Very limited experience devising a major research project
and directing a research teams.
• Director of CAS institute in Northeast, said in 2004 that he
could not get top 20% of Mainland scientists living abroad to
return to China.
• work climate in units not conducive to success.
• Returnees complain of time wasted on cultivating personal
relations, rather on research, to gain research funding, and
petty jealousies complicate their work.
• more success in recruiting overseas entrepreneurs to set up
new companies in China. They run their own shops, but still
have to deal with local governments.
Jump in Returnees due to jump in numbers
going abroad
• Number of returnees has increased rapidly
since 1999, with big jump in 2007 follows by
two years a huge outbound jump in 2005.
• Mostly MA and MBA students who have tried
to enhance their credentials.
• But these are not the world quality scientists,
academics and entrepreneurs that China
wants so much to attract.
No. of Students Going Out and Returning, 1978-2009
260000
240000
220000
200000
180000
140000
120000
100000
80000
60000
40000
20000
Year
No. Going Abroad
No. of Returned Students
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1981
1980
Source: National Bureau of Statistics, China Statistical Yearbook, 2009 (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2010).
1979
0
1978
Numbers
160000
Bringing the State Back In:
Round One, 2001-2003
• May 2002, General Offices of CC-CCP and State Council
promulgate “2002-2005 Outline for Building the Ranks of
Nationwide Talent,” with “strategy of strengthening the
country through human talent” (人才强国战略).
• first CCP national level meeting to discuss “talent.”
• Accord returnees “complete trust,” and quickly “determine
concrete methods for selecting highly talented returnees to
take up leadership positions.”
• End of 2002, meeting of Organizational Department, Zeng
Qinghong, member of Standing Committee of Politburo
responsible for personnel, promulgated principle that “The
Party Manages Talent” (党管人才)
• CCP-Politburo on June 9th, 2003 established a “Central
Leadership Small Group to Coordinate the Work on
Talent.” （人才协调小组）
• Local governments established “Departments on the Work
on Talent” (人才工作处) with their own general offices.
• December 2003, Hu Jintao put forward idea of a shift from
“CCP managing cadres” (党管干部) to “CCP managing
talent” (党管人才).
• Organization Department fails to transform the
environment in units around China whose liberalization
critical to attracting major talents from abroad.
• web-based survey in 2004 of over 3,000 respondents found
that the most important force holding people back from
returning was “the complicated nature of human relations
in Chinese society.”
• Investors felt that the “legal system needed
improvement.”
• My 2002 survey: when calculating whether
to return, mainland expatriates less
interested in special privileges, preferring a
“systematic reform of China's policies on
human talent.”
• Improving the climate for returnees would
be the issue that the CCP would have to
address in the next policy drive.
MOE and Chen Zhili
• Chen Zhili （陈至立）, State Councillor responsible
for education, in March 2007 admitted that
universities did not have enough talent to make
China a “creative” society (创新型国家).
• China needed ``new ways of thinking“ (新思路) and
“new methods” to bring people back to China.
• China needed more mature, “world class professors”
to return to its universities and that the state’s
research monies should be used to bring this about.
Staying after School, 2002-07
Li Yuanchao （李源潮）on Building China
Through Talent
• October 2007, 17th Central Committee, Li Yuanchao, became
head of Organizational Department (CC-OD) and the head of
the LSGT.
• Li wedded to the idea that talent is the “core” (核心) of a
nation’s global creativity and competitiveness and if Chinese
firms are to be globally successful, they must attract very
talented returnees.
• For him, human talent is a “strategic resource” (战略性资源)
and bringing them in is a “strategic investment” (战略投资)
• In December 2008, he called for creating a welcoming
environment based on three kinds of “kuan” (宽) -- 宽松，
宽容,宽厚 -- that is, “relaxed, tolerant and lenient.”
Li Yuanchao （李源潮）2
• Li told Chinese executives to “appeal to the hearts”
(以心引心) of returnees, including love of country
(爱国心), love of their careers (事业心) and need
for self-esteem (自尊心).
• These firms are critical to his goal of making China
an “innovative nation” (创新型国家), a term he
repeats all the time.
• He applauds laboratories, such as the National
Institute of Biological Science, which he visited in
January 2009, for introducing world standards in
hiring and the meritocratic manner of allocating
funding to research teams.
The 1000 Talent's Program
• December 2008, “Small Group for Coordinating Work on
Talent” (SGOT) outlined new 1000 Talents’ Program—China
to bring back 2000 highly talented over 5-10 years.
• Document emphasized that human talent is the most
important resource (人才资源是第一资源) and that
attracting China’s overseas talent was “absolutely necessary”
if China were “to raise it global competitiveness” and
become “an innovative society.”
• Plan called for the return of people who can make
breakthroughs in key technologies (能过突剖关键技术) and
could serve as scientific and technological leaders who can
bring forward newly emerging fields (带动新型学科).
• each locality set a plan combining socio-economic
development and restructuring of local economy, and was to
go out and bring in overseas talent that could bring about
those changes.
Nationwide recruitment efforts
• Fall 2009, at local meetings nationwide, municipalities
proposed the talent the locality needed.
• Cities volunteered commitments as to the number of
talented returnees they would recruit.
• Beijing announced target of 500 people, Guangzhou 300,
Jinan promised 150, all within 3-5 years.
• City and provincial governments and party officials set out
across Canada and the US on recruitment drives.
• In December 2009, Shanghai sent out a team to recruit 115
people in the financial sector alone, a task made easier by
the Global Financial Crisis. Visited New York, Toronto and
Singapore.
• The payment package was competitive, city government
promised to resolve all housing, education and healthcare
problems.
Original Content of the Program, 2008
• Awardees must have foreign PhD, be under 55, willing to work in
China for no less than 6 months each year.
• The program seeking:
• experts and scholars with titles on a par with professors in
prestigious foreign universities and scientific research institutes;
• senior technical and management professionals working in wellknown international companies and financial institutions;
• entrepreneurs owning proprietary intellectual property rights or
who mastered "core technologies," who have overseas experience
as an entrepreneur and are familiar with related industries and
international practice;
• entrepreneurs must own IPR rights and invention patents,
• technologies must be "internationally advanced" that "can fill the
domestic gap in this regard, have market potential and can be put
into industrialized production."
More Criteria
• Awardees must have started own business overseas or served
as middle- and senior managers in renown international firm
for over three years, know international rules in that sector.
• Start-up capital must come from their own funds, their
technology's appraisal as capital stock, or foreign venture
capital that accounts for over 50% of the capital investment.
• Employers must provide favorable working conditions, allow
them to assume leadership, professional or technical positions.
• Employers must find jobs for spouses and schools for children.
• settle in any city of their choice.
• one-time subsidy of RMB1 million, be entitled to medical
care, social insurancepensions, medical insurance, and
work-related injury insurance.
• Housing, food allowance, subsidy for home leave, and
children-education allowance, all tax free.
• Could buy second house
• new salary reached thru consultation and “be reasonable in
light of their previous salary overseas.”
• MHRSS' Overseas Students and Experts Service Center
expected to establish a team to help returnees manage
issues such as Permanent Residence, urban registration,
medical treatment, school enrollment of children, etc.
Changing the Policy Atmosphere
• Ministry of Human Resources and Social Services (MHRSS) which
had directed Leadership Group on Coordinating Talent (人才协调小
组), was replaced in 2008 by Leadership Small Group on Talent under
Organization Department and its Office of Human Talent, which runs
the policy on a daily basis.
• All ministries responsible for aspects of the reverse brain drain are
members, but Organization Department uses its higher authority to
coordinate competing interests and insure the policy's success.
• Now the MHRSS holds the post of Vice-chair of the group.
• Little formal change of local administrative authority;
• Only the Beijing Service Center for Scholarly Exchange, a service
company under the MHRSS and the Ministry of Education, was
transferred from State Council system and placed directly under the
Organization Department.
But informal authority has shifted.
• Service Centers for Scholarly Exchange in large cities remain under
MHRSS in city government, but now report to local LSGT, directly
under the Municipal Party Committee.
• Meetings now run by local CCP Committee and Org Bureau.
• Officials in service centers hoping unit not taken over by CCP.
Party Involvement Changed the policy environment
• In fall 2009, cities mobilized to evaluate community's technical
and scientific needs, commit find these specialists overseas.
• With policy under CCP, local bureaucrats under pressure, but
"soft quotas" will not affect careers if not accomplished.
• But as one local official commented, "the policy is now under the
CCP, so of course the pressure is greater."
• Heightened expectations especially heavy for the units that “use”
returnees, 用人单位, including universities, high tech parks,
research institutes and companies (SOEs), which are under
pressure to improve their internal environment.
Pressure on Cities and Universities
• Interviews with officials in major university in North China
attest to new pressures
• unpublicized incentives come with well-funded program
administered by the CCP.
• city established its own 1000 Talents Plan and encourages
the university to bring in talent to help it meets its quota.
• Deans of various colleges in the university are searching
for highly talented people who can meet local or national
level criteria.
• University notified faculty in spring 2008, asking them to
contact friends and former students to consider coming
back.
• One HR staffer at university, "I have no pressure, but my
Dean does." Why? “The government is eager to see the
achievements of this project quickly."
• Incentives: a college that brings in a candidate who is
approved as a “national level” 1000 Talents—regardless of
full-time or part-time--the school gets 12 million RMB
(almost US$2 million),
• Returnee gets bulk of monies for his own research, but
the dean redistributes some of the monies to other
faculty, making the awarding of a 1000 Talents Fellowship
a positive event for the whole college.
• Reportedly, colleges with “locally approved” full-time
1000 Talents receive 8 million RMB of which they can keep
some funds;
• Short-term fellows (under 2 months) under municipal
project only get air ticket, enhancing incentives to return
full time.
• college also gets considerably less than the 8 million RMB.
• Some people in Beijing deny there is such a policy.
Major Advantages to TTP
• “TTP is very important for Western China because it brings
about changes. The government here are all leftists--they
are not willing to change things.
• Before the TTP, if a wife wanted to live here but is a US
citizen, she had to go back to the US yearly to renew her
China visa. We could not get her a long-term resident
permit.
• But now the city government has agreed to give people a
green card or long-term resident permit. We didn’t have it
here—Shanghai did—but now we do.”
• (Interview in Xian, October 2012)
Increased secrecy: Why?
• CCP not publicly announcing list of awardees, though list of
360 awardees was posted on website.
• Local universities not necessarily posting names on websites.
• Recruit very talented mainlanders, many with jobs and
commitments to organizations abroad.
• Senior academics planning to relocate may not want their
names displayed at host institutions.
• Some Mainland professors working overseas are trying to hold
two positions and draw two salaries
• Wang Xiaodong, prof at Ohio State University, negotiating a
1000 Talent's Award at Nankai University, was target of
complaint by colleague at OSU about amount of time spent as
"dean" of a new college of Pharmacy he set up at Nankai.
• Many part-time participants do not want their names
published fearing that they will be fired.
• HKUST has set up formal ties with Zhongshan University for
parttime employment of one of its faculty.
Measuring Success
• True measure would be dramatic elevation in Chinese science, but will
take at least five years, if not longer, to show an impact.
• The policy intended to change research climate, but “intolerance” does
not become “tolerance” over night.
• Shi Yigong （施一公）and Rao Yi （饶毅) gave up professorship at
Princeton and Northwestern to return to Tsinghua and Peking U.
• In Science they lament that allocation of grants and awards still depends
too heavily on who you know, not what you know,
• Early returnees, now in positions of authority in scientific establishment,
resist reforms that would put more funds in the hands of the current
crop of “star”, 1000 Talent returnees.
• Too major concessions in suggested short-term flaws in program.
• Many awards bestowed on people who already returned.
• While initial award intended only for full time (minimum 6 months)
returnees, in mid-2010 began “A” and “B” schedule latter only spending
2 months a year in China, unwilling to commit to returning full time.
1000 Talents’ More Successful on Some Indicators
% with Foreign
Program
Years
NSF Distinguished Scholar
1994-2004
MOE Cheung Kong Scholars
1994-2004
CAS 100 Talent's Program
1000 Talent's Program*
Total No Experience
1176
PhDs
98.5
32.8
537
90
37.2
1994-2004
899
86.5
43.6
2008-2011
1100
n.a.
88%
Source: Simon and Cao, China's Emerging Technological Edge, p. 240.
* Zweig's research
% with
Foreign
Critiques on Chinese websites
1. Prof at Huazhong University of Science and Technology(华中理工大
学，武汉）says that while senior people may promote school's
prestige, they are unlikely to make a major breakthrough during the
rest of their career; their truly creative burst is past.
• His suggestion? Bring back 10,000 recent PhDs, give opportunity to
be innovative and they will produce very significant breakthroughs.
2. All are contracts, not tenured: “For people abroad with tenure
overseas as full professors, program not attractive enough."
• That the policy caved in so quickly on the two month issue
suggested that organizations working on talent policy are chaotic
and lack systematic coordination;
• policy's actual content and what was being advertised were totally
different, making policy look silly.
• While role of personal ties in ministries, bureaus and laboratories
can be overcome, it is a long term process. many overseas scholars
have "little confidence that they can adjust to the domestic
scientific research environment."
Third critique comes from within MOE
3. Some MOE officials feel that policy they have
administered for several decades has been taken out of
their hands.
• Despite Org. Department's leading role, it lacks the staff
overseas to contact and encourage mainlanders to return.
• work falls to Education counsellors in overseas
consulates and on the MHRSS.
• One MOE official: “we do the work but the policy is
implemented under the “leadership of the organization
department” (以组织部带头）.
• Secrecy has aura of clandestine “talent war,” led by the
CCP part of undeclared strategy to become most
powerful nation in the world.
Funding Problems in 2011
• Recent interviewee,
– Recent returnees will always have more trouble getting
grants. It takes at least three years for people to know
and trust you. There are two aspects to evaluating an
application. First, the project plan, with 60-70% of the
evaluation based on that.
– But 30-40% of the evaluation is based on relationships, it
can’t be avoided in Chinese society especially since
everyone can guess who wrote the application.
– Also, although much of the money goes directly to the
applicants, the directors of research institutes can decide
who can apply for the grants.
– Interview in Guangzhou, November 2011, with 1000 Talent’s
recipient.
Me and Li
Yuanchao,
June 2012,
Shenzhen
My critique: Power of Administrators
• Too much power in hands of Academic and Scientific
administrators, top ranked scientists and academics do not
want to work under their supervision.
• Some administrators still oppose higher salaries for 1000
Talents, one told this to Li Yuanchao.
• Li Yuanchao asked Dalian Polytechnical University President
if “he had too much power?”
• When the president complained that 1000 Talent’s Program
was too inequitable, Li told him that his goal was not
“equality, but was development” (不是为了平等， 而是为
了发展!)
• Xian Jiaotong U set up “special academic zones” for
department with three 1000 Talents—in this way the
program can affect the internal workings of universities.
Data Set (1)
• After getting an original 365 names from the web,
we scoured websites of universities and research
centers to build a data set of 501 “Thousand Talent
Fellows” (1/3 of all awardees at that time).
• Today, they have awarded almost 3000 people with
this title.
(1) Collected
By Sun Meng, Sam
Age Distribution of 1000 Talents, 2011
Age
Percent
Over 55
8.1
51 – 55
26.6
45 - 50
54.8
Under 45
9.9
Source: Various websites
Note: N = 274 or 54.7 percent of the total sample.
Country of PhD, last residence and percent change
Country of PhD
Workplace Abroad
before returning
Change
Country/Region
No.
Percent
No.
Percent
No.
% of Total
U.S.A.
274
55.9
334
68.7
+60
12.8
China
59
11.8
N/A
N/A
-55
-11.8
Europe
52
10.6
36
7.4
-16
-3.2
U.K.
42
8.6
37
7.6
-5
-1.0
Japan
23
4.7
16
3.3
-7
-1.4
Canada
19
3.9
19
3.9
0
0.0
Australia
16
3.3
15
3.1
-1
-0.2
Hong Kong
2
0.4
16
3.3
+14
+2.9
Singapore
1
2
11
2.3
+10
+2.1
Taiwan
0
0.0
2
0.4
+2
0.4
Brazil
1
0.2
0
0.0
-1
-0.2
Total
490
100
486
100
Year in which 1000 Recipients Obtained PhDs,
% of total per year
Type
Full-time
Part-time
Total
A-innovative
99 (26.4%)
275 (74.6%)
374 (74.6%)
B-innovative
36 (80%)
9 (20%)
45 (9.0%)
C-entrepreneur
73 (89.0%)
9 (11.0)
82 (16.4%)
Total
208 (41.5%)
293 (58.5%)
501 (100%)
Percentages are row percentages
A-innovative scholars working in universities and research institutes.
B-innovative scientists or managers working in enterprises.
C-entrepreneurial talents running own companies or with friends.
Notes:
Geographic Location in China of 1000 Talent Awardees
Province/Major city
CAPS data, 2011
Web Data, 2011
No.
%
No.
%
Beijing
415
27.5
103
20.6
Shanghai
225
14.9
74
14.8
Jiangsu (Nanjing)
161
10.7
38
7.6
Zhejiang (Hangzhou)
93
6.2
37
7.4
Hubei
n.a.
n.a.
36
7.2
Hubei (Wuhan)
77
5.1
36
7.2
Tianjin
63
4.2
19
3.8
Sichuan (Chengdu)
n.a.
n.a.
26
5.2
Anhui (Hefei)
n.a.
n.a.
20
4.0
Shaanxi (Xian)
n.a.
n.a.
23
4.6
Hunan (Changsha)
n.a.
n.a.
10
2.0
Others
397
26.3
79
15.8
Total
1510
100.0
501
100.0
Source: CAPs refers to data from the Chinese Academy of Personnel Sciences,
while Web Data refers to data collected by Sun Meng.
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Year of Return
•
Positive Views of Short-term Option
According to an official in a university in Western China:
“We actually prefer the Adjunct system where they come
for a short period each year. We want to maintain friendly
relations with them, but right now we don’t have the
necessary conditions to make them comfortable with
staying long-term.
So, we do not want to promise something that we can’t
deliver or have them come and be disappointed.
I can afford to pay them 3-6 months of salary, but I can’t
afford to give them a full 12 month salary at the higher
salaries. Also, there will be much anger within the school.”
Conclusion
• Three factors support optimistic perspective.
• Li Yuanchao targeted key block to reverse flow of
exceptionally talented – the difficult intellectual
environment and science culture in individual units.
• Organization Department and Leadership Small Group
on Talent use their authority over ministries and
bureaus to overcome complications from overlapping
authority.
• When Shi Yigong （施一公）could not enroll his child
in Tsinghua's high school, Org Department admitted
him to Beida high school; MOE could not accomplish.
• Many talented people have been encouraged to engage
part-time with China: past experience with CAS
suggests that this policy may have limits and problems.
Conclusion
• But Li is no longer responsible for the program.
• New Director of Organization Department did not attend the
Guangzhou Returnees Fair in December and Chinese leaders
often change policies when they come into office.
• Can scientific culture be dramatically changed without
political liberalization?
• Vested interests means non-transparent decisions will not
change overnight.
• Second, business, scientific and academic returnees fear
China’s bureaucracy and myriad regulations that complicate
their return and stifle their initiative.
• Despite active intervention of the CCP, what could not be
accomplished for 30 years – attracting large numbers of the
very best and very brightest to return and live in China– is
still not going to happen so soon.