China Luring Scientists Back Home

blee37 writes "The NY Times reports that China is increasing incentives for Chinese students earning PhDs in the US to return home. One example is a prestigious Princeton microbiologist who returned to become a dean at Tsinghua, the Chinese MIT. In my experience as a grad student, Chinese students were often torn about returning home. The best science and the most intellectually stimulating jobs are in the US. Yet, surely they miss their families and their hometown. As alluded in the article, Chinese science remains far behind, especially because of rampant cronyism in academia as well as government. But, if more Chinese students go back, it could damage the US's technology lead. A large percentage of PhD students in the US are from China. Also, the typical PhD student has their tuition paid for and receives a salary. Does it make sense to invest in their training if they will do their major work elsewhere?"

Comments

probably still makes sense

[Trepidity]

Especially in the lab sciences, you're not paying that PhD student's meagre stipend out of altruism, hoping that they'll one day blossom into a lovely scientist. You're paying it because you need people to do the research: the professor is more of a manager of a large-ish lab so unable to do it him/herself, and hiring actual research scientists on the open market would cost a lot more than $20-25k, and they would expect more reasonable working hours. Considering the proportion of the work that actually gets done by grad students, it's a bargain.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Daniel Dvorkin]

This is true from the professors' and universities' POV, but not necessarily from the US government's. Grad student stipends in the sciences are often tied to grants from the NIH, NSF, etc., and that is very definitely seen as an investment: training the next generation of American scientists and engineers. If the government thinks it's not going to see some ROI, this may change, and the fallout could affect students from the US as well.

Re:probably still makes sense

[wizardforce]

If the US as a whole isn't providing a sufficient incentive for these students to remain here and China is, then I'd say that the problem is mostly our doing. Give them a good reason to stay and they most likely will, treat them like crap and they'll leave.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Tycho]

Brain drain sucks even worse for the people who live in the country the person receiving a PhD emigrated from. For instance, there are more doctors in the born in Ethiopia living in just the Washington, DC area than there are doctors in the entire country of Ethiopia. How does a country recover from such a tremendous brain drain and address major social ills like rampant poverty, famine, and endemic corruption when the very people who might be best able to assist with their own experience and knowledge do not return to their native country because there is nothing to return to and no reasonable job prospects? Why must the US retain as many of their foreign born individuals who received their PhD in the US, when under the right conditions these PhD holders could help their own country far more than any kind of work they do in the US? I'm not suggesting we force these people to return or even expect them to return, especially when there is nothing to return to. But then again I see nothing wrong with ti US offering grants and other forms of aid to underdeveloped countries so that they can improve their situation with respect to development and improve the local economy. This would come with the explicit expectation that these governments spend the money wisely, and steps are taken so that as little money as possible is wasted by corruption.

Re:probably still makes sense

[rve]

> How does a country recover from such a tremendous brain drain

It's not correct to call that a brain drain from Ethiopia if that country doesn't build any brains itself. These brains are build by the US in the US. They are drained from nowhere.

If certain countries, especially muslim one's, would leave behind their cultural backwardness (trying to violently live Qur'an like 1400 years ago - stupid backwardness !) instead of killing christians or other other-faith-people, students would have real incentives to return to such countries.
So these countries get what they act.

Ethiopia is a mostly christian country though

Re:probably still makes sense

[TheKidWho]

If you can't find a job with a PhD in Biochemistry in the entire USA, you're not telling the whole story.

Simple question...simple answer.

[djupedal]

> "Does it make sense to invest in their training if they will do their major work elsewhere?"

What goes around comes around.

Grad students don't have to reside in North America to do good....get over it.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[HybridJeff]

On the other hand, sending back western educated scientists and engineers to China can't help but better relations between the east and the west. People accustomed to western culture who have move back to China to fill high paying positions in Chinese academia and industry are much more likely to think well of the west than those who were fully brought up, raised, and educated under the Communist Party of China. (Not to say that relations between China and the west are bad at the moment, they're probably near as good as they ever have been at the moment).

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[interkin3tic]

When the scientists publish their results, those results will be out there just as much as if the scientists had stayed here.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[MidnightBrewer]

I agree. The original poster expresses bad-manager sentiment; if I train my employees, they might get so good that they'll leave for greener pastures. If the work is good and the work environment friendly, people are more likely to stick around. If you make them feel like their own boss is their worst enemy, then don't be too surprised if your employees start leaving in droves. Train the people you hire; nobody said life had any guarantees, and the best-case scenario is that your own employees learn more and perform better.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[Kjella]

Public research, yes.

But there's a ton of very smart people with PhDs that don't do public research, only very important private research. Just to pick one I imagine Boeing has tons of people with PhDs in aeronautics whose results aren't published but rather used in fierce competition with Airbus and so on. That kind of brain drain will be a problem.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[timeOday]

apparently you're just one of the many billions who think that the US exists solely to be the global sugar daddy.

Could you be any more wrong about the US/China relationship? We owe them $800,000,000,000. It's pretty obvious who's the sugar daddy.

I think the worse problem is the other way around

[clong83]

I've always thought that if they want to go home afterwards, let them. If it becomes a large scale trend that nobody Chinese (or any other particular nationality) wants to stay afterwards, then people may just stop hiring as many. In general until that point, it's still worth it to fund their education just for the work they do as a grad student, and the likely work they will do in the US afterwards, even if a few end up going home and working and contributing heavily in another economy.

Here's where I think the main problem actually is: We actually send home some who do want to stay. And that is a true wasted opportunity. I've met a couple of very smart people in my days as a grad student that were sent home even though they wanted to stay. Visa expired, couldn't find a job in time or some other such nonsense. If you have a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, you are not likely to be a drag on society, even if you don't wind up employed in your first six months out. And now they are in China, Germany, India, or Mexico, working and contributing in those economies and using all the tools and education they got courtesy of Uncle Sam.

We should make it easier for them. And yes, I have real people in mind that I am typing about.

The Worm Turns

[hyades1]

The US has been profiting from the "Brain Drain" for the best part of a hundred years. Now, finally, the countries from whom they've been recruiting the best and brightest have some solid reasons to go home after enjoying the benefits of a US postgraduate education (which often was paid for by the other country at a rate two or three times that charged to US students). Meanwhile, undergraduate, secondary and primary education in the US has been degraded by underfunding to the point where fewer and fewer Americans are able to take advantage of the superb post-grad opportunities.

Re:The Worm Turns

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was in college most American kids were having the time of their lives. Parties, sex, drugs, frats. All the foreign or new citizen kids were in the library and filling the halls of the engineering / computer science dept. Years of that are catching up and all most Americans can do is blame everything on money or not enough government services. How do you think that Vietnamese kid whose family immigrated to the US was able to afford his Master/PHD. He actually worked for it.

summary is economically confused

[philgross]

The summary makes it sounds like the US is doing a favor and donating generously to the rest of the world by funding foreign PhDs. A more accurate description would be that we taking the extreme cream of the crop, educated at great expense in other countries, and then luring them to the United States, where they further strengthen our already best-in-the-world universities, and the great majority stay permanently. The article describes a slight moderation in this trend, with a few more scholars choosing to return (although also describing the obstacles they face when they do).

The overall benefits of this system continue to be overwhelmingly in the favor of the United States. Even those who do return to their home countries go back with a much deeper understanding of the US, not to mention greater English fluency.

The restrictions on foreign students in the aftermath of 9/11 stood out among the other security-theater policies for their active harmfulness.

Re:We are asking the same in India

[Dorsai65]

Better than fussing at the U.S. that these students are choosing to stay here, better you should be asking why they don't want to go back. Caste system? Social stratification? Old-boy network? Nepotism? What does the U.S. do/have that India doesn't?

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[NeutronCowboy]

Ah - you mean, like the Japanese from the 60s and 70s? By that logic, we should see a CNOOC sign on top of Rockefeller Plaza by 2020.

Green card

[seifried]

Seriously. Anyone earning a bachelors (let alone a masters or a PhD) in a "hard" science or a list of accepted majors (CS, EE/ME/etc.) should have a green card stapled to their diploma at their commencement ceremony. Perhaps for Masters you get to bring your significant other over and for a PhD you get up to 5 additional family members (mom+dad and any siblings/brother/sister in law with no criminal record), whatever, if you're going to lure the best and brightest, train them, etc, you should bloody well hang on to them (it's just common sense!). This from a Canadian no less (personally I think we should give automatic landed immigrant status to anyone that speaks English or French, has no criminal record and has a 4 year degree in anything remotely useful). Our countries are founded on immigration, this seems like a no-brainer to me!

Re:We are asking the same in India

[AardvarkCelery]

As a leader, it is the responsibility of a country like US to help everyone grow. If the US does not demonstrate leadership traits, someone else will. Leadership is not simply about more money/resources/power. It is about being a "leader" and behaving like one.

Hogwash. China and India are directly competing with the United States on several levels. China builds weapons specifically targeted at the United States. Frequently, the weapons are based on stolen US technology.

What logic says we have to help our competitors grow???

(Granted, our relationship with India is far simpler and more cordial than our awkward tie-up with China, but there's still enough competition in some areas to take notice.)

Re:Fixed the story for you

[Anonymous Coward]

So...once someone works for an American company, it becomes unethical for them to work in any other country is it? Self pity much?

Yet another article

[dorpus]

Every year, the US media feels obliged to panic about some high-profile scientist that returns to China/India. In most cases, the same scientist will come back to the USA after 1-2 years, because they grew frustrated with the backwardness, lack of freedoms in their home country. These guys gave up promising jobs in the USA, so they have to go to some much less prestigious job in the US.

Don't believe me? Here's one example. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/business/global/28return.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

In the same vein, US universities like to loudly proclaim the opening of campuses in Asia, such as in Singapore, Dubai, or South Korea. Most of the campuses end up being shut down after about 3 years, because they couldn't get enough students, and the students they could get were of very low caliber. In the meanwhile, student tuition experiences huge hikes to pay for the millions of dollars to open new campuses, university administrators pat themselves on the back and give themselves huge bonuses, then when they shut the campuses down, they give themselves bonuses again for "cutting costs".

Grapes turned sour?

[jandersen]

As alluded in the article, Chinese science remains far behind, especially because of rampant cronyism in academia as well as government

This article from New Scientist:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527426.900-get-ready-for-chinas-domination-of-science.html

doesn't agree. Chinese science is in fact well up there with the rest of the world, and will overtake us soon. There is nothing strange in this - while we in the West have grown rather complacent about education, which is necessary for science, the Chinese have been ramping up their investments in education and science. This, by the way, is something their government have decided, so this jibe about ".. as well as government" seems particularly misplaced in this context.

When China was a closed country not long ago, you Americans couldn't shut up about how everything would be so much better if China would open up and become part of the global world. Now they have done that, and you whine because they turned out to be bloody clever; and all you have left is yesterday's cold-war rhetoric. The competition from China is good for us - it will make realise that we have to get our act together and sharpen up.