Welcome to english.eastday.com.Today is
Follow us @
Contribute to us!

Shanghai

Business

Culture

China

World

Pictures

Topics

Life

Services

Home >> auto >> Article
Nation woos back Chinese studying overseas
From:chinadaily  |  2018-04-07 10:23

The number of Chinese doctoral and postdoctoral students in the US who are returning to China is growing, enticed by government support, a strong economy offering more jobs at higher pay and innovation-driven development, reports Zhang Ruinan in New York.

Lei Ting, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, has been flying back and forth between Beijing and the US this past year.

Planning to become a teacher at Peking University and continue his research project there, Lei is attracted to China because of its strong economy and rapid developments in innovation, as well as the country's constant efforts to support overseas talent willing to go back.

Although there isn't a huge amount of Chinese doctoral and postdoctoral students returning to China from the US, the number is growing. They are returning for a variety of reasons, from being homesick to getting financial rewards from the government and opportunities for better jobs with higher pay.

In 2013, the American National Science Foundation reported that 92 percent of Chinese graduates who earned a PhD in America still lived in the US five years after graduation.

From 2008 to 2015, only 3.5 percent of returnees held doctoral degrees, according to the Report on Employment & Entrepreneurship of Chinese Returnees 2017 conducted by the Center for China and Globalization. In 2016, that figure was closer to 11 percent.

The term "sea turtle" has long been used in China to refer to people who have returned home after studying abroad for several years. These overseas-educated graduates make up a privileged cohort in Chinese society and have traditionally been difficult to attract back.

However, according to the latest statistics published by the Ministry of Education, about 540,000 Chinese went to study overseas in 2016, with about 430,000 returning. Compared to 2011, 2016 saw a 37.61 percent increase in the number of Chinese studying abroad and a 56.95 percent increase in returnees.

Share