(iPoster) Keep Your Eyes on Me: Foreign Talent and China's Surveillance Expansion

• In Event: Poster Session: Democracy and Autocracy I

Abstract

This research empirically investigates how international talent inflows
differentially shape China's surveillance apparatus through two distinct
mechanisms. While existing literature treats brain gain as economically
beneficial, we reveal a paradox in authoritarian contexts: international
talent simultaneously enhances state capacity for repression.

We argue that the impact of talent inflows varies fundamentally by academic
discipline, operating through dual pathways. Engineering and computer science
talent enhances TECHNOLOGICAL CAPACITY—providing the means for surveillance
through AI systems, facial recognition, and digital monitoring infrastructure.
In contrast, social science and political science talent triggers THREAT
PERCEPTION—compelling surveillance expansion due to their association with
ideologically sensitive knowledge and potential challenges to regime legitimacy.

Using Web of Science panel data (2015-2023) tracking researcher affiliations
across 300+ Chinese cities, we construct discipline-specific measures of
talent inflows. We test our dual-pathway hypothesis using fixed-effects
regression with multiple surveillance indicators: (1) AI and security-related
patent filings capturing technological modernization, (2) public security
expenditure measuring overall coercive capacity, and (3) computational text
analysis of media discourse on foreign threats revealing threat perception.

Preliminary analyses show engineering talent significantly increases patent
filings and technology-focused security spending, while social science talent
correlates with higher personnel costs, censorship intensity, and threat-
framed media coverage—particularly in politically sensitive regions. These
effects persist after controlling for economic development, existing foreign
populations, and temporal trends.

This research advances State Capacity Theory by demonstrating how brain gain
paradoxically strengthens both infrastructural capacity (via knowledge transfer)
and coercive capacity (via perceived threats) in authoritarian regimes. It
contributes to understanding how global talent mobility sustains modern techno-
authoritarian governance, with critical implications for China's "stability
maintenance" (维稳) strategy.

Author

• Jiwoon Kim, Yonsei University