Go East, Young Man

Since China first opened itself to the outside world, its top science students have been pouring out of the country in pursuit of a better education. It is estimated that more than 26,000 Chinese students have earned science and engineering Ph.D.s in the United States during the last 20 years. Now, China wants them back. Chung-I Wu, chairman of the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, says, The appetite in China [for Western-trained scientists] is insatiable. And some data suggest that Chinese scientists are heeding the call. The state-owned Xinhua News Agency estimates that the percentage of Chinese students who return from study abroad is increasing by more than 10 percent annually, and U.S. scientists report that larger numbers of overseas Chinese are leaving universities and research institutes.

In part, the trend may stem from the tighter U.S. visa restrictions that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A newly security-conscious United States has become a tougher place for foreign scientists to work and study. The American Association for the Advancement of Science warned last year that if the United States does not welcome international students and scientists, the damage to our nations . . . economy and national security would be irreparable.

But if there is a push from the United States, there is also considerable pull from China. What is China putting on the table to lure back its top talent? Some institutes can offer salaries comparable to those found in the United States, particularly when Chinas lower cost of living is considered. Others are coming up with perks such as research grants, tax breaks, research assistants, and pledges to purchase cutting-edge equipment. For younger scientists, returning to China can mean jumping to leadership positions that might not be available in the West for years. And some are driven by a sense of national pride. Kenneth Chien, director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, sees the strong emotional and cultural ties of overseas Chinese as a key motivation for those returning. The Chinese are very proud peopleand thats an understatement, he says.

When even that isnt enough, Chinese research institutes are showing a flexibility to allow scientists to come and go between China and their adopted homes. Mu-ming Poo accepted the directorship of neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences but remains affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley. Maintaining connections with Western universities is important, particularly to established senior researchers. According to Chien, Senior people want a safe haven, because China is riskyits like the Wild West.

But where some see research recklessness, others see opportunity. A liberal government policy toward research in areas such as genetically modified foods and stem cellscontroversial topics for their Western counterpartsgives Chinese scientists a chance to gain a critical advantage. The Chinese government, for example, has aggressively funded research in biotech agriculture and stem cells, whereas the Bush administration cut the National Science Foundation budget by more than $100 million last year and restricted federal money for most stem cell research. China is second only to the United States in funding for biotech crops and plans to sell genetically modified rice on a large scale later this year. Chinas progress on stem cell research may be even more impressive. A group of leading stem cell researchers from Britain recently visited their Chinese peers and were stunned by what they found: state-funded labs better equipped than those in Britain and staffed by highly motivated, highly trained scientists. One scientist from Kings College London called the sophistication mind boggling.

Its too early to tell whether China can reverse the brain drain. Many Chinese students still choose to remain abroad to pursue careers, perhaps because, according to Chung-I Wu, even the most attractive packages back home cant make up for the intangibles of life in the West. Wu visits China frequently and still sees a persistent difference between the scientific culture in China and the United States. China, he says, is still a teenage scientific community that emphasizes immediate practical applications rather than pure research. In a more mature scientific community, you can afford to ask the question at its deepest intellectual level without being encumbered with the thought of doing something useful.

Government interference in the research agenda remains a concern as well. Ray Wu, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Cornell University says that many Chinese scientists who return permanently go from being good to average scientists, because of the more restrictive research atmosphere. Importing a successful scientific culture may not be as easy as importing scientists trained in one.