The Return of the "Brains" to China: What are the Social, Economic and Political Impacts? Asie.Visions 11, October 2008

Since the 1990s, the Chinese government has issued new measures to encourage the return of the most highly qualified individuals, and has promoted a discourse that tends to honour, or even to praise the repatriated "brains" in China and their involvement in homeland development. The return migration has accelerated since 2000. In order to understand the rationale behind the current return migration, we would like to review the historical relations between China and its overseas population. In this paper, we attempt to address the question of patriotism among Chinese living abroad, in addition to analyzing the returnees' impact on the contemporary development of China, in political, economic and social spheres.