From Brain Drain to Brain Circulation: Researching Transnational Migration and Talent Mobility between China and the Globalized World

• In Event: Parents, families, mobilities

Proposal

Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this paper is to map the emerging trends and patterns of the mobilities of Chinese talent to OECD countries, including permanent residents and international students, as part of the overall world trend of increasing transnational migration. This mapping contextualizes the new modalities of Chinese migration from brain drain to brain gain to emerging brain circulation as China continues to advance economically.

Perspectives or Theoretical Framework
This study is critically informed by the integrating theoretical framework of transnational social mobilities derived from transnationalism and new mobilities paradigms. The transnationalism paradigm, which emerged in the mid-1990s, considers immigrants not as being ‘uprooted’ but rather as people who maintain multiple linkages and networks to their homeland (Schiller et al., 1995). With the rapid development of modern communications and transportation technologies, more recent overseas Chinese have engaged in transnational practices that are growing in significance and in their social implications.

Scholars writing in the new mobilities paradigm tradition have developed a wide range of conceptualizations while the paradigm itself is an interpretative framework where the focus is on the production of mobilities (Cresswell, 2006; Hannam et al., 2006). It is clear that the migration of the Chinese to overseas destinations is not simply physical mobilities of bodies but it also included representational mobilities that are symbolic, ideological, intellectual, political, social, cultural, and the like. This in turn meant that there were also practiced mobilities in the local places where the Chinese settled and in their everyday lived experiences.

Research Methods and Data Sources
The quantitative statistical data presented here derive primarily from the OECD and secondarily, with respect to Chinese student mobility, from the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We decided to focus on the OECD because most of the brain drain from China has flowed to its member countries. In the case of the OECD data, two of the major sources were annual OECD reports that largely are entitled International Migration Outlook and Education at a Glance. In our analysis of OECD countries, both Japan and South Korea were excluded thus the data reflect only 35 of the 37 OECD countries for the desire to consider the Chinese diaspora in non-Asian countries. In addition to the OECD data, we also incorporated data from Chinese sources especially with respect to Chinese student mobility and return migration, including the Ministry of Education, National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Research Findings

Chinese migration to OECD countries: Brain drain
Over the past three decades, China’s economic boom and the liberalization of migration policies in OECD countries has resulted in increasing numbers of Chinese migrants to OECD countries. In 2003, there were 185,747 Chinese migrants to non-Asian OECD countries and they constituted 5% of all migrants to non-Asian OECD countries. Over the next 15 years, the number of Chinese migrants increased significantly to 290,814 in 2017, which is a 57% increase from 2003. Chinese international students are also included in our analysis of transnational talent mobility because they readily illustrate the concepts of brain drain, brain gain, and emerging brain circulation. The number of Chinese international students enrolled in OECD countries also steadily increased from 302,400 in 2003 to 860,000 in 2017, which represents an increase of 184%. As important pathways to immigration, many international students decide to stay in their destination countries of education after graduation and apply for permanent residency as skilled immigrants. The emerging trends of growing Chinese migration and student mobility to the OECD illustrates a clear pattern of brain drain for China.

China’s return migration: Brain gain
Since the mid-1990s, the Chinese government has introduced a number of assertive incentive policies to repatriate Chinese talent, which successfully reversed China’s brain drain to brain gain (Zweig et al., 2020). In the 2000s, the return/leave ratio of Chinese international students was consistently under 50%. From 2011 to 2018, the ratio has been consistently over 50% which illustrates an increasing trajectory for students of return to China. This latter percentage means that for 2018, 662,100 students left China to study abroad while in the same year 519,400 Chinese international students returned with long-term intentions resulting in a return/leave ratio of 78%. These return/leave ratios illustrate an increasing brain gain for China and an emerging brain circulation discussed below.

Chinese transnational talent mobility: Emerging brain circulation
This section utilizes smaller studies of highly-skilled returnees to provide a description and estimation of brain circulation. A recent study of returnee intellectual migrants in Chengdu China by Li et al. (2020) found that a majority of them (62%) had developed transnational networks in the form of collaborator relationships and for about one-fifth of them their transnational networks numbered 10 or more. Their evidence supports Saxenian’s (2005) qualified definition of brain circulation where highly skilled returnees maintain transnational ties. In another study, Cao et al. (2020) use an innovative bibliometric methodology to estimate a ratio of returnee Chinese scientists abroad. They estimate that for every returnee from the US, 1.4 remain in the US and for every returnee from Europe 0.9 remain in Europe. When using these return ratios as a proxy for the return of Chinese immigrants in the OECD, combined with the official data for returnee Chinese international students, we argue that the phenomenon of emerging China-OECD brain circulation is a notable and increasing phenomenon since the beginning of this century.

Conclusion and Scholarly Significance
Clear patterns and trends have demonstrated trajectory of transnational migration and talent mobility between China and the globalized world. Unlike earlier movements and mobilities, the latest ones are more dynamic and fluid depicting unending sojourn across transnational spaces. In this view, China’s talent policies have managed to reverse the brain drain and transform it into ‘brain circulation’, consistent with what Saxenian (2005) spoke of in terms of maintaining social and professional ties in OECD countries and also being engaged in simultaneity in transnational social mobilities.

Author

• Shibao Guo, Werklund School Of Education