China set to corner international top level talent

Expat professionals are warming to China as a suitable destination for top-talent researchers.

China’s former plan for rapid growth has morphed into a strategy aimed at attracting high-level talent from overseas to spur its development of top-quality research and innovation. For those with the required talent and experience, the ‘Thousand Talent’ programme offers research subsidies as well as cash payments and far easier processing of visas and the necessary residence permits. The country’s change in focus is drawing top global talent as well as entrepreneurs from the West eager to take advantage of the improving facilities and financial advantages.

The opening up of the world’s second largest economic power to foreign influence is driving demand for top talent in a number of sectors linked with innovation and research. A new state immigration administration is in the works, and visa types from permanent residency through multiple entry and long-stay are being combined with high salaries as well as perks. For expat professionals bringing their families, new international schools are being built and staffed, and overall recruitment as well as expat/entry procedures is being updated and simplified.

Tim Byrnes, an Australian quantum physics researcher, is now feeling perfectly at home in China after spending 10 years doing research in Japan. He’s now an assistant professor at Sino-American higher education institute NYU Shanghai, and says China is a great place for quantum technology research due to its state-of-the-art quantum-capable satellite. The private sector, he says, is a major source of investment into this field. Byrnes believes he’s lucky, as over the past two years he’s been given four research grants, two of which came from the government and China’s Natural Science Foundation. He’s also received a $79,000 subsidy, with more instalments promised.

Secretary-general of the Centre for China and Globalisation Miao Lyn told news reporters there’s huge competition across borders to attract the brightest and the best. Chinese policies, she said, are helping to drive the country’s social and economic development as well as improving the progress of emerging industries. By 2016, almost a million foreigners were employed on the mainland, with many progressing in their careers at a far faster rate than would have been possible in their home countries. Surveys suggest China gives more chances to improve on existing skills sets as well as higher earnings whilst improving.