China aggressively recruited foreign scientists. Now, it avoids talking about...

[AmyStrange]

A talent program just sounds weird
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FROM: https://www.science.org/content/art...-scientists-now-it-avoids-talking-about-those

China aggressively recruited foreign scientists. Now, it avoids talking about those programs
BY DENNIS NORMILE (2022-01-20 2:35 PM)

Information on “talent programs” that drew U.S. scrutiny has disappeared

The criminal charges against Harvard University chemist Charles Lieber—and dozens of others ensnared in the U.S. Department of Justice’s China Initiative—have put a spotlight on the Thousand Talents Program (TTP), a Chinese government effort that brought Lieber and other scientists from overseas to China’s universities and research institutes. U.S. authorities have portrayed the program as an effort to pilfer know-how and innovation, a claim many scientists dispute. But as the scrutiny of the TTP grew, the program slipped out of sight.

Official mentions of the TTP have disappeared, and lists of TTP awardees once posted on government and university websites are no longer available. But experts say the TTP has simply been folded into other programs, and recruitment is continuing. More than ever, the effort focuses on scientists of Chinese origin, and part-time appointments of the type that Lieber had have become rare.

China launched the TTP in 2008, aiming to boost the country’s research output and quality. At the time, more than 90% of Chinese who earned Ph.D.s in the United States remained there for at least 5 years after completing their studies, according to a May 2020 report by David Zweig and Siqin Kang of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The TTP offered returnees—and foreign researchers willing to relocate—competitive salaries and funding to establish labs. Although some half-time appointments were allowed, the program aimed for full-time researchers.

There were few takers. So in 2010 the part-time option was expanded, allowing recruits to maintain their jobs overseas if they spent at least part of the year in China. In 2011, close to 75% of 500 TTP scholars Zweig and Kang identified were on part-time agreements. (A 2019 U.S. Senate report claims the TTP had attracted more than 7000 “high-end professionals” by 2017 but didn’t specify how many were part time.)

The program has paid off for China. A 2020 study by Cong Cao, a China science policy specialist at the University of Nottingham’s campus in Ningbo, China, showed scholars in China with overseas experience published more papers, and with higher impact, than stay-at-home peers. Universities also benefited from the association with star scientists. Lieber’s presence, for example, may have helped the little-known Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) attract prospective students, says Futao Huang, a higher education scholar at Hiroshima University...

(SNIP)

A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 375, Issue 6578.

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Does this make China look bad and why?

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[rjh01]

I think this is an essential stage for China. It wants to get skills, so it goes out and recruits people with those skills. It is also a trap for China. It needs to eventually train its own people so that China can go in its own direction.

 

[dudalb]

I think this is an essential stage for China. It wants to get skills, so it goes out and recruits people with those skills. It is also a trap for China. It needs to eventually train its own people so that China can go in its own direction.

I am no friend of the current Chinese regime, but I see nothing wrong with this. Hell. the US did the same damn thing.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

I think this is an essential stage for China. It wants to get skills, so it goes out and recruits people with those skills. It is also a trap for China. It needs to eventually train its own people so that China can go in its own direction.

Yes, the quoted portion even describes using recruited talent to improve a university. That's a very forward-thinking investment of the kind that avoids the trap you mention.

Chinese history is replete with examples of regimes that went on extended inward, insular myopic navel-gazing for generations at a time, this appears to be not that.

 

[abaddon]

I am no friend of the current Chinese regime, but I see nothing wrong with this. Hell. the US did the same damn thing.

No kidding. The way the chinese regime operates is abhorrent. However, I am all in favour of that regime allowing outside influence. The more different ideas that rock up, the sooner the regime will fall. I think they know that, were they honest.

But there is a huge history of subservience to the extent that it is built in to be subservient to whichever authority of the day. Thousands of years of it.

The real problem is one of scale. Any political change has a problem because China is so unbelievably huge. The US is a mess. China is 5 times bigger. and thus has more etnic peoples. Where that will end up is anyone's guess.

 

[dudalb]

No kidding. The way the chinese regime operates is abhorrent. However, I am all in favour of that regime allowing outside influence. The more different ideas that rock up, the sooner the regime will fall. I think they know that, were they honest.

But there is a huge history of subservience to the extent that it is built in to be subservient to whichever authority of the day. Thousands of years of it.

The real problem is one of scale. Any political change has a problem because China is so unbelievably huge. The US is a mess. China is 5 times bigger. and thus has more etnic peoples. Where that will end up is anyone's guess.

I got a feeeling it will end up with the return of the Warlords in China when the Mandate of Heaven runs out for the CCP.

 

[arthwollipot]

The flip side of this is that China also educates young people in foreign universities. The campus of one of my country's top rated universities is within walking distance of where I'm sitting right now, and (before COVID at least) there is a massive number of international students from China. If I walk up the road to lunch, and I hear someone speaking a language that is not English, it is 99% likely that it is Mandarin. It's actually hard to exaggerate how many Chinese students we have. All getting an education at a top university, and returning to China with the skills.