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Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou have become China's economic powerhouses
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Posted on 01/17/2003 5:35:07 AM PST by Enemy Of The State
Friday, January 17, 2003 Posted: 1:18 PM HKT (0518 GMT)
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GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters) -- When June Zhu left her Chinese homeland in 1987 to study biochemistry in England, she took with her vague thoughts of returning some day, but not much else.
In the China she left, salaries averaged about 100 yuan (U.S.$12) a month, and finding a job in her desired teaching profession was difficult, especially at a desirable school.
Her plight was that of many of China's most educated citizens who moved overseas, ostensibly to pursue their studies but more likely to look for a better life and more opportunity.
Fast forward 15 years to a vastly different China, where Zhu was among 1,300 overseas Chinese students and professionals attending a recent trade show in the southern city of Guangzhou, specifically aimed at luring them back.
Zhu, who now lives in Los Angeles, figures she can find a job in fast-growing Guangzhou that will pay 100,000 yuan a year.
"Now conditions are much better," she says, stopping to chat between checking out the various groups trying to tempt her from the show's row upon row of booths.
"If all goes well, I could be back in 2004."
An estimated 400,000 of China's best and brightest have left their native land since 1978, said David Zweig, an associate professor at Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology who examines the phenomenon in his book Internationalizing China.
Of the total who left, an estimated 150,000 have come back, he said.
"The majority of those who went out and came back were government subsidized people. Of those who paid their own way, only about four percent return," Zweig said.
China began letting more of its students out into the world in the late 1970s after former leader Deng Xiaoping launched the era of economic reform that ended the continuous revolution of Mao Zedong's China.
The number has climbed steadily since then from about 860 in 1978 to nearly 24,000 in 1999, Zweig said.
But it is only recently that foreign-trained Chinese have begun to return, lured by a booming economy and more opportunities in the growing number of private companies and foreign firms that now have offices in China.
The Chinese government has also helped by reassuring returnees they can leave again if they want, and by providing various subsidies, from free plane tickets home to preferential housing for highly desired candidates.
"Very few people want to work for state-owned enterprises," Zweig said. "The preferred option is to work for a joint venture or a foreign company, or if you have a product you try to set up your own company."
One would-be entrepreneur at the Guangzhou show was Mike Zhu, a Canadian-trained Guangzhou native who came to the event in search of financing for his business idea to make and sell his educational products.
"If I find a partner, I could come back here to live for a while," he said. "In the last few years Canada's economy has been quite bad ... In China, the biggest advantage is I'm Chinese and I understand the Chinese language and culture."
Other returnees speak of coming back for similar reasons. Many say their skills are not utilized well enough, and they feel they are hitting a glass ceiling in their adopted countries.
But the road back to China is not always smooth, according to some Chinese, who say they have returned only to be confronted with a different working culture and low pay.
One such returnee, Larry Huang, left an information technology job in the U.S. last year to return to China, where he makes about 10,000 yuan a month working for a Beijing computer company. That's a generous wage by Chinese standards but about a tenth of what he made in the United States.
"If I was working for a foreign company in China, I could probably get at least double if I was hired locally," he said. "If I was hired as a foreign expatriate, I could probably maintain my U.S. standards."
Huang, 35, said he also has difficulties sometimes with the Chinese work culture.
"The working habits here are a little slower," he said.
"There are a lot of meetings here. We discuss a lot of things. In the U.S. it's probably one meeting and it's done."
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