Chapter 5. Transnational Capital: Valuing Academic Returnees in a Globalizing China

Transcription

1 Chapter 5 Transnational Capital: Valuing Academic Returnees in a Globalizing China Stanley Rosen and David Zweig For many years, the Chinese government was deeply distressed about the loss of Chinese intellectual power resulting from the brain drain. However, as Cheng Li notes in his introduction, in the past five years, more and more mainlanders who studied abroad have been returning to China. What forces are driving academics to return? One potential explanation is that those who return have accumulated a form of transnational capital, viz., some enhancement of their human capital that is based on international knowledge or linkages accumulated overseas that are not readily available in China. We would assume that given China s expanding international linkages, the Chinese government, domestic organizations, and even the Chinese marketplace will view this transnational capital positively and reward it accordingly. While transnational capital remains the key focus of our study, and potentially our primary explanation, we also want to address some other potential explanations that might trigger a reverse brain drain. Starting from the assumption that there are four possible levels of analysis or explanation international level changes, state-level or government policies, organizational explanations, and individual calculations we feel it is necessary to explore the potential impact and intersection of these different levels. 5-1

2 For example, significant changes in the external environment such as the collapse of the IT sector in the U.S. and the loss of jobs there could push people to consider returning to China. This explanation would not be incompatible with a failure while abroad explanation that seems to be popular among those people who did not go abroad. Moreover, international organizations, such as multinational corporations (MNCs), which need returnees, may offer packages that will bring people back. Or international donors, such as the Ford Foundation, may fund new domestic organizations, which are based on returnees. In this way, these types of international organizations recognize the value of transnational capital and therefore help promote the reverse brain drain. Second, government policy changes could be very important. These shifts may be related to the transnational capital hypothesis in that the government s preferential policies to encourage returnees would be based on a recognition of the value of transnational capital and the government s desire to bring these people back. Clearly, the recent government emphasis on building China through science and technology (keji xingguo), as articulated by former party leader Jiang Zemin, reflects a recognition that overseas students and scholars have somehow accumulated important knowledge that is critical for building a rich and powerful China. Third, domestic organizations, such as universities, research laboratories, and private or state-owned firms may have developed a strong interest in acquiring these people and their transnational capital and therefore vie with each other to attract the best and the brightest. Sometimes, they may be getting incentives from the government to do this; at other times, competition may have emerged among leading institutions to acquire returnees in order to enhance the organization s reputation. To this extent, they may be offering higher salaries, better housing, and other perquisites that will bring people back. Here, too, we must consider the potential importance of institutional innovations, whereby organizations carry out significant 5-2

3 internal reforms to create an organizational culture that is more conducive to attracting returnees. This might be separate from any special remuneration that might be given to the returnees. Finally, we will look at individual level explanations, which would entail some clear awareness by returnees of their relative value in China, particularly when compared to their value overseas, which then convinces them to return. Challenges to this hypothesis might be familial reasons for example, to be near aging parents or some sense that there was simply no more room for upward mobility in the West. There are of course difficult methodological questions making a levels of analysis approach somewhat problematic. Returnees have offered a variety of motivations for their return, which may vary depending on the forum in which these reasons are presented. For example, reasons given in the openly circulated Chinese media, and in interviews as well, often encompass multiple motivations for returning, from the politically correct e.g., to serve the country to the specifically familial. One way of assessing such varied motivations is to examine whether these self-reported explanations have changed over time. For example, if references to changes in government policy -such as the relatively recent emphasis on serving the country (wei guo fuwu) without returning to live in China are cited only in the more recent reports, we may reasonably assume that our second level is becoming increasingly important. In addition, we have drawn on a variety of methodological sources, including surveys conducted at Chinese universities by Chinese social scientists, individual interviews, reports in the openly circulated Chinese media, restricted circulation (neibu) materials, and government documents to explore the consistency presented in these varied accounts. However, our primary data source is a survey carried out in 2001 with 106 returnees and 90 locally educated academics who had either never gone overseas or had gone overseas too briefly to be considered a returnee (see below for our definition of returnee ). 1 This has been 5-3

4 supplemented by individual interviews conducted overseas and in China. In evaluating whether returnees possess transnational capital, we seek to determine objectively if these returnees have greater capabilities than locally trained academics, whether they are making greater contributions to China s academic development than locally trained academics, and whether they are indeed being rewarded more than people who did not go overseas. If they do have stronger capabilities and are making greater contributions, then the greater rewards may be justifiable. We also employ some data from an earlier survey carried out in 1997, which allows us to compare those with foreign Ph.D.s and those with domestic Ph.D.s, who went overseas for postdoctoral fellowships. International Political Economy The global political economy and external forces clearly played an enormous role in pulling academics out of China. The relative value of an individual s labor inside and outside China pushed many students and teachers to try to get overseas. 2 Moreover, for scientists within universities, access to equipment in the West unavailable in China helped convince some people to go overseas. Foreign assistance, such as World Bank loans in the 1980s ( ), paid for many Chinese to go out to gain academic degrees, mostly Ph.D.s, and to learn how to work the new equipment that was being imported into China through World Bank money. 3 However, while the equipment came into China, many individuals who went out never returned. Foreign organizations and companies, quick to hire or support overseas mainlanders who had scientific skills, also played a key role. Finally, in the aftermath of the Chinese government s military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in June 1989, over 60,000 mainlanders received U.S. green cards while another 11,000 got Canadian residency, and eventually citizenship that allowed them to stay overseas forever. 5-4

5 Foreign institutions enthusiastically recruited Chinese graduate students, who in many cases were critical cogs in the research work carried out in research universities in the United States. Thus while many politicians in the U.S. wanted to cut off all academic exchanges with China after Tiananmen, American universities were at the forefront in calling for a continuation of student admission programs from China. 4 Domestic Political Economy Since the late 1990s, universities have become much more aggressive in encouraging overseas scholars to return, with many offering very significant preferential policies. For example, Xiamen University s website offered returnees a salary supplement of 100,000 RMB, research grants, two research assistants, a three-bedroom apartment and research equipment. However, website enticements or proffered promises are not always honored in practice. One professor returned to Shanghai based on a deal he had cut with the administration, only to find that the Personnel Department was unwilling to give him the housing package that he had been promised. 5 After vacating his overseas post, he found it difficult to leave China again, so he had to accept the lesser package. In addition, some universities or departments within universities have shown a preference for hiring their own Ph.D.s, who they send abroad as postdoctoral fellows. In this way, they can generate loyalty to their department, increasing the likelihood that the faculty member will return. In what follows we will examine this cohort of post-docs to see if they develop substantial amounts of transnational capital. Within some universities, there appear to be significant battles, not only between returnees and locals, but even among the returnees themselves. Indeed, such battles and the war stories that have been reported by interviewees have further complicated our analysis. Clearly, these conflicts have induced individuals and even groups of scholars to leave their university and move 5-5

6 elsewhere, but we need to distinguish between conflicts based on personality and leadership style and those more relevant to our analytical categories. Government Strategy and Policy The Chinese government has clearly played a role in encouraging people to study abroad. However, once they were overseas they were not given sufficient support, thereby insuring that the outflow turned into a brain drain. Various types of data show that overseas scholars, even those who were sent by the state (guojia gongpai), relied more and more on foreign assistance, rather than Chinese government monies. This is particularly true for scholars sent by their unit (danwei gongpai), many of whom were university teachers. For example, a study conducted by a research group in China found that over 80% of the funds used by unit sent scholars to support themselves came from overseas sources, while only 17% came from their home unit. Thus, while these universities may have kept a position open for these people even when they were overseas, it is unlikely that the teachers felt an excessive sense of loyalty, and therefore much responsibility to return to their original unit. Indeed, this situation has been reported in Chinese journals targeted at the top leadership. In an analysis intended for decision makers, entitled China s Grim Situation: Shortages and Loss of Talent, the author described what he called the severe outflow of talent from brandname universities, noting that interviewees at Beijing University (Beida) reported that graduates from the physics department would commonly leave parting messages to each other, such as See you in the United States. After providing statistical data on the outflow from various departments at Beida, the author noted that the secret of the success enjoyed by American and Japanese enterprises in taking away talent from Beijing, Qinghua and Fudan Universities lies in the large investments in scholarships

7 Such admonitions apparently have had an influence in reorienting government priorities. In the past few years, the Ministry of Education has given as many as 12 leading universities significant amounts of funding to turn themselves into more globally competitive universities. One of the stipulations of these grants is that 20% of the funds must be used to enhance their human capital, which means hiring people from overseas. This is part of a larger strategy to create clusters of talent for the coming global competition. The well-known Changjiang Scholars Program, supported by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-hsing, is also associated with this strategy. Individual Economic Interest Our final level of analysis is the individual returnee, in particular their economic interest. According to Qian Ning, Chinese who go overseas are searching for the American Dream. They need something substantial to draw them back, especially if they have been able to fulfill the American Dream in the West. 7 Here we ask a series of questions that can be addressed in a formal survey. In effect, we are concerned with why individuals return and how they are treated after their return, particularly in comparison with those of relatively equivalent academic attainments who have not left. Are individuals returning because they have become more valued inside China than overseas, measured by such indicators as higher salaries and better housing? What factors determine the value of returnees? Do those who are considered more valuable measured objectively in terms of benefits provided by their units receive more grants, have more international linkages and more international projects, or attain more success in aiding others to go abroad? Do they work in some specialized field, which is in short supply in China, now commonly called a que men? Indeed, did individuals go abroad with the intention of returning after improving the quality of their human capital? This would be in keeping with the 5-7

8 scholarly literature, which suggests that the skills individuals seek overseas are ones that are particularly useful in the country of origin. 8 On the other hand, if they return in part because of their own failure to succeed abroad -- one director of a Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) institute said that returnees reflect the 50 th to 80 th percentile of the Chinese talent overseas; in other words not the top 20% who prefer to stay overseas where they have succeeded -- then many who return and may fall into the 50 th and 60 th percentile are not likely to have been that successful overseas or be any more successful at home than talented people who did not go abroad. The Survey Methodology A major debate revolves around the definition of returnee. Initially, back in the 1980s, it was seen to be enough if someone had gone overseas for six months; for our study, the minimum for labeling someone a returnee is that they had been overseas for a minimum of one year, while today many see the hai gui pai (or sea turtles ) as including only people who have graduated overseas. In a recent detailed investigation of returnees at Beijing University who had been given leadership posts, the authors clearly defined returnees as students who have obtained academic degrees abroad and in the Hong Kong and Macao regions, or who had already obtained intermediate-level work titles before going abroad and then conducted a year or more of advanced studies abroad. 9 This definition matches the one adopted in this paper. In structuring our study, we wanted to have a control group of people who were similar to our returnees in terms of age, academic quality, areas of expertise, and so forth, and whose only major difference was that they had not been overseas. In this way, we could attribute any differences between the two cohorts to the fact that the locals had not been overseas. However, 5-8

9 we did face some slight problems in creating such a control group. First of all, the locals in our survey are a little younger, with 13 (or 14.4% of the control group) being under the age of 30, while none of our returnees were that young. Yet, this finding should not be surprising, as people who went overseas for a degree will be older by necessity, while teachers in China who may have a Master s degree and stay on at the university may well be between the ages of 25 and 30 and can still be worthy scholars. Second, in terms of where they got their highest degree, the control group contained a large number of people with just a local undergraduate degree (42.2%), while only 19.3% of returnees only had a local undergraduate degree. This latter number is surprisingly high, but some of the returnees (18/104) had received their highest degree before 1980, suggesting that they were what were in the late-1970s called the gugan or core elements, in that they had received their undergraduate degree before the Cultural Revolution and so were the major group to go overseas in the late-1970s and early-1980s. The share of people in the two cohorts with a domestic M.A. was similar (30.3% vs. 34.4%), while both groups had relatively similar numbers of people with domestic Ph.D.s (22% vs. 20%), a factor which increases the comparability of the two groups. The big difference was that 9.2% of the returnees had overseas M.A.s, and a similar percentage had overseas Ph.D.s. Thus, except for the large number of locals holding domestic undergraduate degrees, the two cohorts were roughly similar. In terms of the location of the schools, we interviewed in five cities Changsha, Suzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Kunming giving us a good geographic distribution. In these five cities, we carried out interviews in seven universities, with 54% of our interviewees from universities under the Ministry of Education, 43% under provincial bureaus of education, and 3.3% from a ministry-run school. In terms of distribution, the greatest weakness with our sample 5-9

10 is that 30 of our returnees and 30 of our locals were all from Hunan University in Changsha, which meant that almost one-third of the interviewees came from the same school. Capabilities and Contributions First we explore the question of whether the returnees made more significant contributions to their universities. In this way, we address two key questions: first, did they actually acquire transnational capital, which increased their value relative to those who did not go overseas? Second, did they get preferential treatment? If the answer to the first question was affirmative, then perhaps they deserved more rapid promotions, better housing and other preferential policies and incentives that the universities gave them to return. One of our first major differences is in language capabilities. Among returnees, 41.3% described their foreign language ability as very good, while only 10% of locals did so. While only 13.8% of returnees said that their language skill was just so-so (yi ban), 43.3% of locals felt this way. The differences among those who chose relatively good (jiao hao) were less striking. Therefore, to the extent that having good foreign language skills is important for people s careers in an internationalizing China, the returnees were better positioned to participate in the global academic world. Indeed, in the recent Beijing University survey of returnees who have been given leadership posts cited above, the importance of knowledge of foreign languages is noted as the first of four outstanding advantages that returnees possess. Such knowledge, it is suggested, enables them to utilize foreign language materials, conduct direct exchanges with foreign scholars, and inform themselves about the newest developments in academic circles abroad in a timely and accurate manner

11 One way to measure their relative contributions and capabilities is to look at their publication records. If we look at their publication record in overseas journals, a sphere where the returnees should clearly dominate, we find that after returning to China, 32% of returnees had published articles overseas, with most of them publishing from 1-3 articles. Joint publications with overseas scholars, including articles (21.1% versus 8.9%) and books (4.6% vs. 1.1%) (p<.04), show a similar pattern. Yet, 22.8% of the locals also reported publishing in overseas journals (though we have no way to compare quality), 11 which reflects the internationalization of the academic community in China. 12 But two-thirds of them had published only 1-2 articles. Interestingly, only 9% of the returnees had published overseas before leaving China, which suggests that their time overseas was quite helpful for their ability to publish abroad. In terms of publications in core domestic journals (zhongwen hexin qikan), locals do publish more in these journals than returnees (table 1). This is unsurprising since such publications should be their bread and butter; as academics, if they did not publish here, where would they publish? Thus, 74.4% of all local academics reported publishing at least one article in a core domestic journal. However, returnees are also transferring ideas and scholarship into China, some of which must reflect knowledge gained overseas. Thus, 42% of the returnees reported that since returning, they had published an article in an important (core) domestic journal. But an analysis of publications in core domestic journals presents its own methodological problems. According to interviewees, given the nature of Chinese academic publishing, a publication in a core journal may not necessarily be a quality publication, since not all core journals are of equal stature

12 Table 1. Key Differences Between Returnees and Locals* Returnees Locals (n=106) (n=90) % % Those recently receiving Provincial level research project National level research project Collaborative research project with industry National Patents Recently** published or accepted for publication in international journals in key (hexin) domestic journals Those presenting papers in international conferences held outside China held in China Those holding positions in national academic associations Those supervising PhD students Those teaching new graduate courses*** required courses elective courses Those holding administrative responsibility in the university Those often reading foreign books and journals Those maintaining strong international contacts (2 or more times/month) Those helping colleagues and friends to go overseas Those who succeeded in helping students to go overseas Those who helped establish international collaboration projects Those making arrangements for foreign scholars to conduct research in China Those translating foreign materials Those believing their foreign language skills were good or very good Those who were very satisfied with their current housing Those believing they were promoted quickly or very quickly in the past 5 years Those believing they were able or very able to utilize their capabilities Note: * We report only findings that were statistically significant at the.05 level. **For returnees, we only counted publications which followed their return to China. ***For returnees, we only counted new courses which came after they returned to China. Source: Academic interviews in China, Spring

13 Turning to their real research projects, the returnees far surpass the locals. In terms of their success rate in gaining national-level projects, 20% of returnees had such projects while only 14.4% of locals did (table 1). In terms of cooperative projects with businesses (heng xiang), where one would assume that the locals would dominate, 24.8% of returnees had made these research links, while only 13.3% of locals had such ties. Of course, the most significant difference was in international projects: 13.8% of returnees had established such international projects. Although this may appear to be a smaller percentage than expected, it reflects the fact that only 14.7% had gone overseas to get a degree, another 15.7% had gone out specifically to participate in an international research project, and 52.8% had gone out as visiting scholars (jin xiu); by contrast, only one local had established an international project. 14 The findings from the Beijing University study cited above are highly congruent with our results. From , returnees accounted for more than two-thirds of Beijing University s winners of national- and provincial-level awards for advances in the natural sciences, science and technology, and inventions. Since the beginning of the Eighth Five Year Plan period ( ), returnees have presided over more than three-fourths of the 170 Social Sciences Foundation projects. 15 Even under the Seventh Five Year Plan ( ), the 143 returnees at the Electronics University of Science and Technology comprised only 15 percent of the faculty but completed 41 percent of the total research projects. As of 1991, they had received 30 percent of the national- and provincial-level awards received by the university. 16 We also looked at their relative level of contribution to the university and their profession. Returnees clearly have been given more responsibility within the universities, with 60% of locals never having any administrative responsibility versus 27.5% of returnees (p>.00). In a previous study, Chen and Zweig found that many of the core elements who went out in the early 1980s became deans or vice-deans, while many who returned in the mid-1980s became department 5-13

14 heads. 17 Thus in this group, 3.7% held university or college level positions, 37.6% held department level positions and 16.5% headed up teaching or research groups. However, the only major difference between the returnees and locals is that many more returnees have held positions as department heads (37.6% vs. 15.6%) (p>.00). We also find very striking differences in their level of participation on academic boards at the national level. While an argument could be made that such individuals were already prominent before they went abroad indeed, that might have been the reason why they were chosen to go confirmatory evidence from other sources, such as the Beijing University survey cited frequently in this paper, suggests that their prominence clearly increased because they had returned from abroad. The Beida study, in noting that returnees account for the great majority of leadership posts at the university, attributes this to two main factors. First, the university attaches great importance to these people and boldly promotes them to leadership posts. Second, decisions on leadership posts are closely tied to the university s strategic plan for building a first-rate worldclass university. International exchanges are seen as crucial to this strategy. More specifically, the Beida study on leadership examined cadres at or above the deputy department (chu) level and some important section (ke) level positions. Of the 476 leaders so identified, there were three at the deputy ministerial level (fu buji), 5 bureau (ju) heads, 11 deputy bureau heads, 101 department heads, 205 deputy department heads, and 151 important section level heads. Significantly, 337 of the 476 (71%) had experience studying abroad. 18 Indeed, other surveys are congruent with these findings. For example, a survey of returnees at a number of universities in Beijing conducted beginning in 1995 and examining those who had returned in the 1980s and 1990s found, with regard to professional titles, that the range of promotions for returnees had been quite extensive. They found that before going 5-14

15 abroad, 93 persons had senior professional titles whereas today 173 persons have senior professional titles, an increase of 86%. 19 Finally, these two groups have made significantly different contributions to the academic efforts of their universities and colleges, so they may deserve special treatment. First, we found remarkably different levels of involvement in the supervising of graduate students. Over 94.4% of returnees are graduate supervisors, while only 44.9% of locals supervise graduate students. Even if the 13 locals who are under 30 years of age are removed from the sample, the differences between the two groups are still statistically significant. 20 It appears that returnees courses are more likely to be required, as 17.4% of returnees are teaching required graduate courses versus only 4.4% for locals. And they are teaching more graduate courses overall, including the elective courses. Moreover, their transnational capital allows them to pass on international knowledge to Chinese students. For example, the returnees are much more likely than locals to use the fruits of international exchanges in their classes, with 56.9% using them a great deal (10.1%) or rather often (jiao duo 46.8%), as compared to locals, who use them a great deal (6.7%) or rather often (22.2%), for a total of 28.9%. Once again, the recent Beida survey confirms our findings. Of the 533 doctoral supervisors, 422 (around 80%) are returnees. 21 International Linkages A key aspect of transnational capital is derived from global linkages. Clearly, people who went overseas should have much stronger international ties, but how much stronger are those ties? As we saw above, returnees have much stronger foreign language skills, which simplify the process of global exchanges. They also read a lot more foreign language materials, with 62% of returnees reporting that they often read foreign journals versus 31% of locals. The two main reasons that locals give for not reading many foreign language materials is that they do 5-15

16 not have time (38.9%) and that they have weak foreign language skills (36.1%), while returnees justify not reading many foreign language materials primarily because their units do not have these materials (50.0%) or that they, too, do not have time (37.5%). Thus, while lack of access to foreign language materials is the main factor holding back the continued development of the returnees transnational capital, weak language skills and lack of time are the main problems for locals. Our returnees have international contacts much more frequently. Among returnees, 20% have contacts at least once a week (5.6% have daily contact), while another 21.5% have contact every other week. Compared to this total of 41% who have what we might call regular contact, only 18% of locals have similar levels of contact. Most strikingly, however, if we look only at the 80 locals who responded to this question and combine those who never had any foreign contacts (32.1%), with people who have contacts less than once a year (23.4%), then 55.5% of locals basically have no international contacts. 22 What kind of transnational interactions do these two groups have? Do these interactions strengthen their own value and their value to China? Returnees are much more likely to facilitate the flow of foreign information, expertise and projects into China. Returnees are twice as likely to provide links for international cooperation (29.4% vs. 14.4%), and three times as likely to introduce foreigners to their unit (34.9% vs. 10.0%). They also are more likely to translate foreign language materials (30.3% vs. 17.8%), which brings foreign ideas into China. Returnees serve as bridges for people to go abroad. Almost half of our returnees report that they had helped colleagues go abroad (44.0% vs. 24.4%) and 60% reported that they had been successful in helping students go overseas (60.6% vs. 23.3%). On the other hand, 60% of locals reported that they had never helped students get abroad. Removing the non-respondents, two-thirds of locals have never tried to help any students go overseas, a rather shocking finding 5-16

17 given the demand for overseas linkages by Chinese students, and the level of internationalization of China s education system. These findings also suggest that, given the continuing fever to go abroad, local faculty members are unlikely to attract many students. Indeed, returnees create an atmosphere that promotes growing abroad as essential to one s success. Based on in-depth interviews with over 100 students in eight universities across China, Chen Shengluo noted the respect with which returnees, in contrast to locals, are treated on campus. In an environment in which both the Chinese and the foreign media is viewed with suspicion, returnees have become a trusted and crucial source of information on the outside world. Students at Beida and Qinghua suggested that an important indicator of a person s ability was whether (s)he could study in the United States. As Chen quotes one of his Beida interviewees: As soon as I entered Beida I discovered that everyone, including teachers and students, all said the same thing: Take the TOEFL exam and study in the U.S. Everyone has the same idea, that the most outstanding students go to the U.S. I ve never heard anyone say that the most outstanding students remain at Beida. A Qinghua interviewee noted: As soon as I entered Qinghua the talk of going abroad was like an outbreak of chicken pox (chu shuidou). You simply couldn t hide from it. 23 Finally, while the differences are not statistically significant, it is worth noting that in the previous two years, 55% of our returnees had not gone overseas at all; however, 36.5% of them had gone abroad in this period, suggesting a fairly vibrant flow of transnational exchanges. In fact, 22.2% of locals had also gone overseas in the past two years. Indeed, as we shall suggest in our conclusion, based on data from Beida and elsewhere, it appears that returnees have, in a real sense, won and that locals also recognize the necessity of going abroad as a prerequisite to compete for leading academic positions and research grants at home. 5-17

18 Rewards, Recognition, and Problems We have documented fairly clearly that the returnees have acquired transnational capital and, because of it, have been making more contributions to their universities than those who have not been overseas. Moreover, while those contributions may be based on their ability to expand the universities global linkages, we can also see such contributions in terms of graduate teaching, administrative posts, publications and research. But have they been rewarded for their greater contributions? During earlier periods, based on press reports and interviews, one might have hypothesized that jealousy among colleagues and narrow mindedness among university administrators might serve as institutional blocks to the natural workings of the marketplace which should reward the greater contributions and higher value of the human capital encapsulated in the returnees. In fact, universities in general, with their tenure and hierarchical systems, limited job mobility, and the very political nature of personnel decisions within universities may not be very responsive to market forces. In evaluating the rewards given to returnees and locals, we wanted to differentiate between subjective views of the two groups and more objective measures. If market forces are at work, and even more, if university administrators have tried to lure overseas scholars through various preferential policies, then we might find a significant difference between these objective measures and subjective perspectives. Our best opportunity to look at this issue was in terms of the key question of housing. In our survey, most locals reported living in 2-bedroom (31.1%) or 3-bedroom (42.2%) flats, with another 17.8% living in 4-bedroom units. On the other hand, almost half of the returnees (48.6%) lived in 3-bedroom flats, with another 33.9% living in 4-bedroom flats. Only 14.7% of returnees lived in 2-bedroom units. Yet when asked to evaluate the differences in the housing conditions of the two groups, returnees downplayed their better conditions. Thus, 68.8% of 5-18

19 returnees saw their housing and that of the locals as about the same (cha bu duo) and only 1.8% saw it as much better; 25.7% saw it as a little better (hao yi xie). However, the locals evaluation seems much more on target with 14.4% seeing returnees living in much better housing, 54.4% seeing them living in a little better housing, and 27.8% seeing it as about the same. Given the fact that fewer than 18% of locals lived in 4-bedroom flats, their evaluation does seem more appropriate. We can also look at the objective and subjective situation in terms of research funding. As pointed out above, 20% of returnees got national level grants while only 14% of locals did so. Similarly, 24.8% of returnees had cooperative projects with businesses, while only 13.3% of locals had such ties. And while 13.8% of returnees had international projects, only one local had an international project. However, in terms of their subjective evaluation, 18.9% of locals believed that returnees got much more research funding than locals, while only 2.8% of returnees believed this to be the case. And while 45% of returnees believed that they had received the same amount of money as locals, only 15.6% of locals felt that way (p.<.00). Similarly, in their responses to purely subjective questions, returnees wanted to assert that they had received only slightly better treatment than the locals, while the locals saw returnees as having received significantly better conditions or treatment. For example, in terms of promotions, 18.9% of locals believed that returnees were promoted much more quickly than locals, while only 1.8% of returnees held that view. While 45.9% of returnees believed that the pace of promotion of returnees was about the same as locals, only 13.3% of locals felt this way (p.<.00). We also asked them to evaluate the treatment the returnees received from their unit s leaders. Among locals who responded to the question 18% of them did not respond 32.4% believed that their unit s leadership enthusiastically welcomed the returnees, while only 13.3% of returnees felt such an enthusiastic welcome. And while 25.7% of returnees believed that their 5-19

20 unit s leaders made no distinction between the two groups, only 12.1% of locals felt that way. Even more striking is that in response to a question about how the state treats the returnees, over 31% of the returnees did not see the state giving them special treatment, while only 10.5% of the locals did not see the state favoring returnees. Clearly, there is a wide disparity in how these two groups evaluate the response of the government and China s formal institutions to the returnees, with the locals feeling quite disadvantaged. Finally, in terms of the fruits of their work (gongzuo chengguo), returnees were more likely to believe that they have been more productive. For example, relative to the locals, 6.4% of returnees saw the fruits of their work as very much more (duo de duo), 71.6% saw the fruits of their work as somewhat more, and 18.3% saw their output as about the same (cha bu duo). Interestingly, locals did recognize that returnees were more productive than the locals in their unit, but the evaluation of the size of that gap differed. Thus, when evaluating the fruits of the returnees work versus the locals, only 2.2% of locals selected very much more, 51.1% picked somewhat more, but 35.6% felt that the results were about the same. (p.<.004). Returnees and locals cited the same obstacles in their work. The most important problems were funding, equipment, lack of information flow, inflexible management, and the difficulty of managing interpersonal relations. These problems are repeatedly cited in Chinese media and in other surveys. In the survey of returnees at several Beijing universities cited above, there were three major areas of dissatisfaction: (1) shortage of research funds, insufficient subsidization, and narrow range of beneficiaries; (2) low wages and benefits, and poor conditions; and (3) shortage of housing. The shortage of research funds was the source of the greatest dissatisfaction for virtually every returnee, although satisfaction levels varied from school to school. 24 The Beida survey on leadership noted two specific problems returnees faced that set them apart from the locals. First, owing to the relative simplicity of interpersonal 5-20

21 relationships abroad, returnees were not very skilled at handling such relationships after returning to China. Second, returnees was often seen as a threat by persons in the same work unit who had not studied abroad, so there was a certain attitude of rejection and jealousy. 25 In our survey as well, returnees more often selected difficulty of managing interpersonal relations than locals. A overseas scholar with a joint appointment at the University of Toronto and Beida interviewed by Zweig in Toronto expressed similar problems. Some reports from internal publications, particularly in the mid-1990s, went further, and explain why government policy shifted toward rewarding returnees by the late-1990s. One report noted that people often refer to those who go for studies abroad as gold-diggers. Moreover, in a scathing rebuke of local academics, the report criticized not only the damage done to Chinese education and research by successive political movements of the past, but also the damage resulting from the new commodity economy. One section is worth citing in some detail: Today, the mentor system (daoshi zhi) in postgraduate education in China has become a mere formality, and the students hardly ever see their mentors. Nor is much of anything new presented in classrooms, so the students get a feeling of being deceived. Hence, education of postgraduates and doctoral candidates in China has lost its attraction for college students who have ambitions to engage in scientific research. A teacher in Beijing University s personnel department put it bluntly: Foreign-trained Ph.D.s are different from locally trained Ph.D.s, and that s a fact. Ph.D.s who come back from studies abroad are able to teach three or four different subjects and teach them very well. But locally trained Ph.D.s are, in general, only capable of lecturing on the little that figured in their graduation thesis, and not very creatively at that. The backwardness of China s research standards as compared with those in the developed Western countries will see no fundamental change in the short term, nor will the going-abroad-fever abate in the immediate future

22 Comparative perceptions of why people return One important question that can get to the heart of the disagreements between returnees and locals is why they think people returned. Here the systemic level of analysis plays into the discussion. Overall, locals see reasons external to China as the force driving people back, in particular the inability of the overseas scholars to find development opportunities overseas. Thus, in the eyes of 19% of locals, failure to succeed overseas has brought returnees back, even though a systemic approach could see this as reflecting a contracting market in the U.S. and Canada, that is, a shift in the global political economy. Still, only 5.5% of returnees selected this as a reason for returning. Second, locals emphasize the government s policy, which reflects their resentment at the preferential policies meted out to returnees, who they generally think failed overseas. Finally, for their second choice, many locals (29.1%) believe that returnees are coming back because of higher social status in China, reflecting a view that returnees get undue privileges. On the other hand, returnees focus on domestic factors, such as the fact that they can do their own thing in China (31.2% vs. 12.2%), and their higher social status in China (13.8% among first choices). They do, however, see one external factor at work: their difficulty in entering mainstream society overseas (13.8%), a factor beyond their own capabilities to manage. Thus, either they are pulled back by opportunities to utilize their increased human capital, a response that is well in line with the brain gain literature, or they are driven back by a glass ceiling that does not recognize their enhanced human capital. Interestingly, when we asked those who were overseas in 1993 why they thought people would leave the United States, racism was a common explanation. 5-22

23 Testing the Rent-Seeking Hypothesis: The Que Men or Shortage Phenomenon A key hypothesis underlying our study is that people return to China because they believe that there are greater returns to their human capital in China because of the value added that they gained overseas, and because the technology that they mastered is in short supply in China. While such opportunities bring high profits in the marketplace, it may be harder to evaluate this within a more academic setting. Yet research scientists did put forward the idea of the que men or field in which there is a shortage, arguing that those people who go overseas for a Ph.D. often look for a research or thesis topic which is in short supply in China. We can look at this data in several ways. First, how many people who returned were working in a field that was in short supply in China? Of all returnees, 19.3% reported that the domestic supply of human talent in their field was extremely short (feichang jinque), while another 46.8% reported that the domestic supply in their field was relatively short (bijiao jinque). Second, when we look at the comparative responses of returnees and locals, we see that returnees are twice as likely to be working in fields that are in very short supply in China (19.3% vs. 8.9%), which suggests either that they were able to go overseas because they were working in a valuable field, or more likely, that that they learned something overseas that was in short supply in China. 27 In support of the second conclusion, our data show that when we asked returnees if what they studied overseas affected their decision to return, 24.1% of those who answered that question said that their field of specialization had a very big influence on their decision to return, while another 41.8% said that it had a relatively important influence. Thus the transnational capital they acquired overseas, and which made them more valuable, helped bring them home. 5-23

24 The Fever to Return As with many of the popular responses to internationalization in China, a fever to return has emerged. According to Schelling, fevers are the collective or macro-level outcome of individual micro-level actions that result from the anticipated action of everyone else. 28 Thus, if many people believe that others are reacting to a limited opportunity, or that those who engage in a certain activity are likely to benefit but that the opportunity to participate or the benefits of participation are limited, a fever may emerge. Hu Angang also attributes fevers to the fact that the government often creates economic opportunities in China, but then closes down those opportunities when demand exceeds supply. 29 Today, many people overseas are concerned that the opportunities to return and the good positions could dry up. 30 The government is investing heavily in creating new academic posts, but people overseas fear that there will be a limit to those opportunities. If true, then they might never be able to get back to China and could remain stuck overseas. An informant from a mediocre university in New Zealand had gone back to China in spring 2003 to see if there were any good opportunities. He spoke about feeling great psychological pressure to return to China soon, or else it would be too late. Indeed, this pressure had been felt even earlier. One interviewee who had returned to China from Japan in 1996 told a reporter that he must return to China to establish my own position. If I wait any longer, the opportunity will be gone. 31 This problem may be particularly acute in academia, and less so in business, as the number of academic posts is limited by institutional arrangements. Unlike businessmen, academics cannot simply decide to come back and open a company they need a position in an academic institution. Moreover, people who are looking to return, particularly if they already have a post overseas, want good platforms, such as associate director or director of a research program, which are in short supply, so as these positions emerge there is a surge of demand. Finally, 5-24

25 many returnees want to negotiate a position as a full professor, the number of which is severely limited. Conclusion The results of our survey enable us to answer some, if not all, of the questions we posed at the outset of this paper. For example, on most of categories we explored, returnees were treated better than locals. This fact confirms the institutional level of analysis, as universities adopted important preferential policies, such as in housing. However, the improved treatment of returnees in recent years cannot be separated from important changes in government policy. The commitment to establish a small number of first class (yiliu) universities able to match their foreign counterparts has improved the status of returnees. In December 1998, the Ministry of Education and 63 Chinese universities jointly published a series of advertisements in the overseas editions of Renmin ribao (People s Daily) and Guangming ribao (Guangming Daily) offering employment for 148 specially appointed professors, known as 100,000-yuan professors. The universities were told to provide suitable research benefits to those so chosen. The professed intention was to attract scholars remaining abroad and demonstrate that China was welcoming those who contemplated a return, and the effusive press reports duly noted that the group of 148 to be named in March 1999 would receive the highest salaries ever given since New China was founded. 32 Indeed, the Ministry of Education has appropriated special funds ranging from 600 million to 1.8 billion yuan to Beijing University, Qinghua University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, and Shanghai Jiaotong University with the primary aim of raising the salaries of their teaching staffs and becoming world class. As the number of returnees began to increase, with leading universities now flush with new funds competing to attract high-level talent back to China by hook or by crook and regardless of the price, the 5-25