China Attracting Global Talent: Central and Local Initiatives (Comments AND Notes) (Report‪)‬

Chinese leaders Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao have stressed the importance of human talent in China's modernisation project. Over the years, China has gradually established a nationwide policy of human resources development (HRD). Recent research has documented the evolution of China's HRD policy. (1) One milestone event was an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference on human capacity building (Beijing Initiative) that Beijing hosted in 2001. Building on this momentum, China included a special chapter on HRD in the 10th Five-year Plan (2001-2005), the first time ever in a five-year plan. This in turn helped China take more pro-active measures to develop human resources through education, training and research and development (R&D). Against this backdrop, China has become much more open and outward-looking towards global talent, including overseas Chinese and foreigners of non-Chinese origin. Not only has the central government, but also local governments have shown great interest in attracting global talent. Indeed there has been growing competition among the large cities for top-notch talent from abroad. Another development is that the type of talent China is recruiting has changed over the years. While the central government continues to value top scientists and engineers for the purpose of national innovation and competitiveness, other types of talent--senior managing staff in multinational corporations and banks and technopreneurs who have developed their own patents or technology--are also targeted by various talent schemes.