China’s Talent Attraction Policies in the Present Age

Abstract

Since the late 1990s, the highly-skilled workforce has become fundamental to a successful knowledge economy. To maintain their economic competitiveness, many developed countries started developing related migration policies to attract international talents (Bravo-Moreno in Comp Educ 45:419–433, 2009; MPI in Attracting and selecting from the global talent pool: policy challenges, 2013). However, they are not the only competitors for highly skilled workforces, emerging economic giants, such as India and China, are also aiming to attract global talents, and traditionally they have been the senders of skilled workers and international students to developed countries (Lu et al. in Soc Forces 92(2):631–658, 2013; The Economic Times in Indian students with foreign degrees returning home: lessons India can learn from China, 2014). China’s surplus workforce of domestic migrants has functioned as one of the main drivers for its rapid economic growth in the past three decades (Zheng in Don’t be too pessimistic about China’s economy. Centre for China and Globalization (CCG), 2016). As the global economic competition became increasingly intensive and technology-driven, China’s advantage is slowly fading away.