> People are making smart, individual decisions to head overseas for work. Places like China are rewarding them.
Wait what? I know that many Chinese students are staying in China, but this is the first I've heard of a substantial demographic immigrating to China to work there, esp from the US. Do you have data?
One annecdata. When I handed in my doctoral thesis in Oxbridge, I was contacted by a recruiter from PRC that offered me generous startup funds ($600k-1M) and salary to bootstrap my own academic lab at Tsinghua, Fudan, or other top universities. It'd take me 4-6 years to get an equivalent offer in UK or EU where experience and connections are much more important than talent.
I am European and I do basic research in science. They seem to be very interested in fundamental science and investing heavily in lots of subfields. As discussed in other comments, the improvement in their research quality during the last decade is nothing short of impressive.
Interesting
I didn't even reply, as I didn't want to taint my profile. But it looked very interesting and serious.
Plus, from this one can infer they are clearly scouting researchers in a systematic way.
It's not widespread. But China has made an effort to offer obscene amounts of money to attract smart professors and researchers to switch to Chinese universities as they've tried to build up their top-tier beyond Beida and Tsinghua.