China must manage brain drain. Report Nyt
China's brightest minds, including technology professionals, are emigrating. Many, however, do not head to the United States. The New York Times in-depth analysis
They attended the best Chinese and Western universities. They lived middle class in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and worked for tech companies at the center of China's tech rivalry with the United States. They now live and work in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and every other developed country.
Chinese people – from young people to entrepreneurs – are fleeing to escape political oppression, poor economic prospects and often grueling work cultures. The exodus increasingly includes tech professionals and other well-educated middle-class Chinese.
THE REASONS FOR THE EXODUS
“I left China because I didn't like the social and political environment,” said Chen Liangshi, 36, who worked on artificial intelligence projects at Baidu and Alibaba, two of China's largest technology companies, before leaving the country in early 2020. His decision was made after China abolished term limits for the presidency in 2018, a move that allowed its top leader, Xi Jinping, to remain in power indefinitely.
“I will not return to China until it becomes democratic,” he said, “and people can live without fear.” He now works for Meta in London.
I interviewed 14 Chinese professionals, including Mr. Chen, and exchanged messages with dozens more, to learn why they decided to uproot their lives and how they started over abroad. Most of them worked in China's tech industry, which was surprising because the pay is high.
CHINESE "BRAINS" DO NOT CHOOSE THE UNITED STATES
But I was most surprised to find that most of them moved to countries other than the United States. China is facing a brain drain and the US is not taking advantage of it.
In the 1980s and 1990s, when China was poor, its best and brightest sought to study and work – and stay – in the West. According to the United Nations, emigration reached a peak in 1992, with more than 870,000 people leaving the country. The number fell to a low of about 125,000 in 2012, as China emerged from poverty to become a technology powerhouse and the world's second-largest economy.
The Chinese government has worked hard to retain them, offering incentives to attract scientists and other qualified people. In 2016, more than 80 percent of Chinese who studied abroad returned home, up from about a quarter two decades earlier, according to the Ministry of Education.
The trend has reversed. In 2022, despite passport and travel restrictions, more than 310,000 Chinese emigrated, according to United Nations data. With three months left this year, the number has reached the same level as all of 2022.
THE AUTHORITARIAN CHINA OF XI INCENTIVES EMIGRATION
Many people I interviewed said, like Mr. Chen, that they began thinking about leaving the country after China amended its Constitution to allow Mr. Xi to effectively rule for life. The “zero-Covid” campaign, with almost three years of continuous closures, mass testing and quarantines, was the straw that broke the camel's back for many of them.
Most of the people I interviewed asked me to use only their family names for fear of government retaliation.
One of them, Mr. Fu, was working as an engineer at a state-owned defense technology company in southwest China when he decided to leave. He found that after the constitutional amendment, he and his colleagues spent more time attending political study sessions than working, forcing everyone to work overtime.
As Xi increasingly ruled through fear and propaganda, the social and political atmosphere became increasingly tense and suffocating. Fu said he became estranged from his parents after arguing about the need for strict pandemic restrictions, which he opposed. He barely spoke to anyone and lived in a political closet. Late last year he quit and applied for a work visa in Canada. Now he and his wife are traveling to Calgary, Alberta.
GETTING A VISA TO THE UNITED STATES IS DIFFICULT
Most emigrants I spoke to cited America's complicated and unpredictable process for applying for visas and permanent residency status to explain why they didn't choose the United States.
The number of student visas granted by the United States to Chinese citizens, long a starting point for promising future emigrants, began to decline in 2016, due to deteriorating relations between the countries. In the first six months of 2023, Britain granted more than 100,000 student visas to Chinese citizens, while the United States granted approximately 65,000 F1 student visas.
Fu said he hadn't considered the United States because he studied at a university on Washington's sanctions list and worked at a defense company, both of which could make it difficult for him to pass the US vetting process. security of the American government. But he said he would eventually like to work in the country, which he idolizes.
Some tech professionals chose Canada and European countries over the United States for better social benefits, work-life balance and gun control laws.
When Ms. Zhang decided to emigrate in July 2022, she made a list: Canada, New Zealand, Germany and the Nordic countries. He didn't choose the United States because he knew it would be extremely difficult to get a work visa.
THE CASE OF TECH INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS
Ms. Zhang, 27, a computer programmer, felt that Silicon Valley's fast-paced culture was too similar to China's grueling work environment. After working for five years at a major technology company in Shenzhen, he couldn't take it anymore. She also sought a country where women were treated more equally. This year she moved to Norway. After paying taxes for three years and passing the language exam, he will obtain permanent residency.
Ms. Zhang said she doesn't mind earning about $20,000 less than in Shenzhen and paying higher taxes and living expenses. He can finish his day at 4pm and enjoy life outside of work. She doesn't worry about being considered too old for the job when she turns 35, a form of discrimination that many Chinese face. He doesn't live in constant fear that the government will launch a policy like "zero Covid" that will disrupt his life.
Most tech professionals I spoke to took a pay cut when they emigrated. “I feel like I'm paying for freedom,” said Zhou, a U.S.-trained software engineer who left his job at an autonomous driving start-up in Beijing. He now works in a Western European automotive company. “It's worth it,” he said.
“MISERY AND UNCERTAINTY”
Another emigrant, Mr. Zhao, described his long and anxious journey to the United States.
Raised in a poor village in China's eastern Shandong province, he came to the United States five years ago to earn a doctorate in engineering. He originally intended to return after graduation at the end of this year: China was on the rise, he believed, unlike America.
But China's response to the pandemic has made Zhao begin to question his beliefs.
“I cannot return to a country where everything was built on lies,” he said.
But it won't be easy to stay in the United States. Zhao received a job offer and will obtain temporary worker status as a graduate of a STEM (science and engineering) field. The duration will be three years. He will be entered into a lottery to obtain an H-1B work visa. He did the math: There's a 40% chance he won't win the lottery by the end of three years. He may be forced to go back to school to stay in the United States, or ask his company to transfer him to a job abroad.
“Sometimes, when I think about it at night, I feel that life is full of misery and uncertainty,” Zhao said. “Then I can't sleep.”
(Extract from the eprcommunication press review)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cina-fuga-cervelli/ on Sun, 08 Oct 2023 05:35:13 +0000.