First published 1995 by RoutledgeCurzon
Published 2013 by Routledge
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Transferred to Digital Printing 2006
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zweig, David.
Chinas brain drain to the United States: views of overseas
Chinese students and scholars in the 1990s / David Zweig and
Changgui Chen.
p. cm. (China research monograph; 47)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-55729-049-0
1. Chinese studentsUnited StatesAttitudes. 2. Chinese studentsUnited StatesInterviews. 3. ScholarsUnited StatesAttitudes 4. ScholarsUnited StatesInterviews. 5. Brain drainChina. I. Chen, Changgui. II. Title. III. Series: China research monographs; no. 47.
LC3071.Z84 1995
378.19829951073dc20
95-8737
CIP
Copyright 1995 by Taylor & Francis
ISBN 1-55729-049-0
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 95-8737
All rights reserved.
Professors Chen and Zweig owe an enormous number of debts to many people, most particularly to Peter Harris of the Ford Foundation, which supported our research, and to Professor Stanley Rosen, who organized the California data collection and gave us many insightful comments on the questionnaire. Without the help of Professor Yue Xiaodong, who arranged all the interviews in Boston, as well as Xu Yu, Li Guiting, and Xiao Dong, who arranged interviews in Buffalo, Albuquerque, and New York respectively, we would not have been able to find the people we interviewed. Adam Segal and John Auerbach, Fletcher graduate students, helped us enter the data into the computer and analyze them, while Durwood Marshal of the Tufts Computer Center was a key adviser on methodological aspects of this project. He also ran the multivariate data analysis for us. Research assistance was supplied by Zachary Abuza. Professor Zweig's former student, Shu Yuan, helped with translations. Zhang Lihui and Brent Fulton drove up and down the California coast to carry out our interviews there. An especially large thanks is due to Kevin Kramer, whose wise counsel on many aspects of data collection and analysis was critical to the success of this project, and to his wife, Laura Hettleman, who helped us enter some of the data as well.
At the Fletcher School we received yeoman administrative support from Karin Shirer, who had to handle all the complex financial issues of the grant; Maria Judge, who authorized the financial aspects of the grant; and Professor Zweig's former secretary, Donna Antonucci, who managed the administrative side of Professor Chen's life for him while he was in the United States. In China we appreciate the support of Vice-President and Professor Yao Qihe of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in Wuhan, who, as Professor Chen's director in the Research Centre on Higher Education, supported our research (both in the United States and in China) and allowed Professor Chen to stay away from his important tasks back in China. With Chen gone, Vice-President Yao's burdens at the center increased enormously. Also, we want to thank Professor Wen Fuxiang, dean of the College of Social Sciences at Huazhong University. We also appreciate the help of Professor Ruth Hayhoe of the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, in Toronto, and the Canadian International Development Agency, which supported Professor Chen during his time in Toronto.
Thanks to Professor Tom Gold, who was chair of the Center for Chinese Studies at Berkeley when our study was accepted for publication, and Professor Wen-hsin Yeh, who was chair during the time we revised the manuscript and worked it into shape for publication. A special thanks to Joanne Sandstrom, who is the editor for this book at the Institute of East Asian Studies. Also a special thanks to Kyna Rubin, who gave our manuscript its most extensive review and comments.
Most of all, we owe a great debt to the 273 people who shared their time, their views, and their hopes for a better China with us. It was a difficult decision for them to agree to talk with us. But without their trust and support, this study would have been impossible. We hope that we have not abused that trust in this study and in the manner and tone in which we have presented our findings. We all in our own ways hope that China will soon become the type of society that will be able to draw back its people of talent who went abroad to find a better life.
In the end, we alone are responsible for the content of this study. We spent many hours debating our different perceptions of what the brain drain is all about, what were its causes, and which government was most responsible for its emergence and growth. In the end, we came up with the best solution: use social science methodology to seek the truth, whatever it may be, and then report the findings in as unbiased a way as possible. That is what true collaborative social science is all about, and that is what true friendship across cultural chasms is all about.
Nevertheless, one final note of caution. Before Chen left the United States in October 1993, he wrote a preliminary draft in Chinese. Zweig borrowed readily from that draft, and from the many hours of discussion he and Chen had together, in composing the English manuscript; but in the end, Zweig wrote this manuscript, and primarily for a Western audience. Chen then made general comments on the English draft, which Zweig then revised. Chen did not see the final draft that was submitted. While Zweig understands the need to be sensitive to the Chinese context in which this manuscript will be read, he also recognizes that, at times, in certain instances, his own views may have come out too strongly, and that these views may not totally reflect Chen's own perspectives. Zweig hopes that friends in China will understand the process by which the manuscript was composed.
Beginning in 1979, the government of the People's Republic of China, hoping to catch up with Western science and technology, decided for the first time since 1949 to send large numbers of students and scholars to the West to study. While significant numbers of people returned before 1986, after 1987 the ratio of returnees to those leaving dropped significantly. After the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen incident and the U.S. government's decision to allow any mainland Chinese who was then in the United States to apply for permanent residency, the probability that people would return dropped even more precipitously.
Suddenly China found itself in the same situation as many developing countries: sending their "best and brightest" to the United States triggered a "brain drain," and with it the threat that the strategy of sending people abroad to catch up might backfire. But will these people return? If China gets richer and remains politically stable, will the brain drain reverse itself? Which Chinese are most likely to return? What are the current conditions of these students and scholars in the United States? Are they helping their country of origin by working closely with colleagues in China? What are the key issues leading them to stay abroad? What is the real cost of this brain drain? And what policies are most likely to help bring them back?
