“Back to China”: the Reverse Brain Drain in China

“Back to China”: the Reverse Brain Drain in China Every autumn, American students are busy with applying for undergraduate or graduate schools, so are an increasing number of Chinese students. Chinese get to realize the significance of being transnational. “Transnational” means involving in many countries. Now, human capital, especially those who have international experience, is significant to the development of a country in the internationalized world. However, plenty of overseas students from developing country tend to stay abroad for a better future, which is a great loss of developing countries. But, recently, more and more Chinese students go back to China after they complete their study, which is a good news to China. Looking through this new trend, there are three main factors that may drive overseas scholars to come back to China: the growth of economy in China, the support from the government to overseas scholars, and the bond between overseas scholars and home land. Reverse brain drain is a term of migration. The definition of this term is the phenomenon that talented people who once studied or worked in developed country go to a less developed country which is developing in high pace. Recently, this has been common in developing countries, such as India, Brazil, and China (Llana, Ford, Marquand, Pflanz, & Ibukun, 2012). Conversely, in the past, People’s Republic of China (PRC) was not as open as it is now. PRC even ceased the communication in education with other countries once because of the Chinese Culture Revolution which lasted from 1966 to 1976 (Liu, & Li, 2010). Not until 1978 when China renewed the policy of international academic communication did China send students to go abroad (Yao, 2004). As China’s policy became looser, “outgoing tide” and “incoming tide” appeared (Zhang, 1997). “Outgoing tide” is a description of the phenomenon that plenty of students go abroad and the “incoming tide” means those students go back. Since 1978,