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?"

Fixed the story for you

[Anonymous Coward]

The NY Times reports that China is increasing incentives for Chinese students earning PhDs in the US to return home along with all of the technology they acquired at working at American companies.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[timmarhy]

the chinese don't tend to be terribly inventive is their problem. from what i've seen, they tend to suffer a cultural thing "it's been done this way for 1000 years, it's how we will continue". what they are good at is taking an idea and doing it for 1/10th the price and in 1/2 the time.

as their exposure to the west increases this will change i'm sure, but for now most of the innovatino is still going to come from the USA and other western countries.

they go home - Because there is no Visas to stay

[Anonymous Coward]

I know from personal experience that it has become increasingly difficult to stay in the US (or Immigrate) since the late 90es.

At this time, even highly skilled individuals with several post graduate degrees have no chance to get a Visa and move to the US.

Unless a student was lucky and managed to marry a US citizen during their school time, they have NO OTHER CHOICE than to leave the US once their student visa expires, and they cannot get a work (H1) visa in time.

Supposedly this is all for your own good, to protect the country and the domestic job market.

Re:intellagence gathering..

[ShiftyOne]

Good idea, but the DoD realizes this. They don't allow foreign nationals clearance to work on their top secret projects.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[interkin3tic]

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.

Speaking as a grad student, it's not like we're paid that much, less than unemployment on average apparently. [phdcomics.com] Cheaper in many cases than hiring a non-grad student to do the same work. The lab gets cheap labor, and the student gets an education. Even if those students don't stay, I expect it adds up to a net benefit for us.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[Totenglocke]

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

It has nothing to do with their education and everything to do with taxpayers money being used (in the form of grants) to pay for that education. But apparently you're just one of the many billions who think that the US exists solely to be the global sugar daddy.

"Home" is not that sweet as one might think

[nkeric]

For anyone who wants to come back, please read this and think twice, there are many "unspoken rules" in Chinese universities:

Did corruption in Chinese universities cause the suicide of a brilliant young academic? [telegraph.co.uk]

Re:Fixed the story for you

[Anonymous Coward]

In the American schools, for undergrad, we charge more for out of staters. However, the feds put up a lot of money to support students, including foreign students. It is upper academia, where things are interesting. It use to be that other nations paid to come here. Now, the feds, in the interest of getting all nations to work together, put a small stipend out for most students. Sadly, it is not enough for Americans to live on. So other nations are putting up part of the money.

Basically, foreigners get better support here, than do Americans since foreigners have the same support as Americans AND their nation's. That is why American's are losing out.

Re:probably still makes sense

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You know, like many countries the situation is simple. The probable answer is yes, but nobody knows for sure. It's quite an investment to find out for sure. There are not nearly enough discovery wells. Generally speaking, the foot of any young mountain range should have at least some oil (and older ones should have lots and lots of coal).

In America, Alaska, for example, should have much more oil than is presently discovered, as should california. In Latin America there are supposed to be many undiscovered oil giants.

Exploration for oil is, however, quite costly. Given what happens to a country once oil gets discovered, It'd probably be best to hope there is no oil in Ethiopia. And they have muslim neighbors. We all know what will happen if oil is discovered.