[maxglute]

Blatant is another way of saying successful. Not many countries have system in place to incentivize reverse brain drain, and even in PRC that was hard fought. It's difficult to compete with US tech wages propped up by cheap money. Big reason why PRC can get talent to come back, and with IP is because they pay accordingly and, most importantly, have system in place where that knowledge can be exploited. Another big reason is, and let's be real, East Asians have bamboo ceiling (relative to whites, south asians) in western tech/science. At some point, for some Chinese in western tech, a comfortable salary isn't enough when PRC offers appropriate senority/status and opportunity to build/lead and can compensate/execute accordingly. People aren't happy with good 6 figure salary when they think they deserve 7-8 figure.

People here forget PRC "seaturtles" going back to grow domestic PRC industries is as much a PRC enticement success as US/western retainment failure.

[alephnerd]

> Not many countries have system in place to incentivize reverse brain drain

Most regional powers do.

The Chinese program is based on Japan's METI, Taiwan's MEA, and Israel's MoE.

These 3 countries devised the primary reverse brain drain programs that countries like China, South Korea, Turkey, India, etc began emulating in the 2000s-2010s.

[maxglute]

I suppose more accurate to characterize not all are successful as preventing/reversing brain drain to maintain/grow competitiveness.

PRC emulating 2000s challenges JP/TW recognized is expected. Difference is in execution/available playbook, PRC has growing R&D budget and commercial opportunties to brain drain from likes of JP/TW now, and that's mostly side effect of scale and PRC dumping resources into relevant sectors to compete for top talent. Not as much as US, but enough to entice. It's also failure of others to retain, JP is starting to terminate 10 year academic positions from 2010s designed for job security and they're not being recycled into JP corporate, so they leave for greener pastures abroad, including to PRC. TW... just has tertiary over capacity and not enough domestic opportunities, they also go abroad also including to PRC. SKR... annecdotally it seems like many stay abroad because there's not much opportunities other than being chaebol wage slave. VS last few years, more and more PRC talent/students abroad either see writing on the wall for their future prospects in west due to geopolitics but also know there's _real_ money to be made in PRC strategic sectors. 1000 talent / China Initative crackdown may have accelerated process but it's also increasingly obvious there's a lot of money and prestige to be had, and I think latter undervalued for those who feel stuck due to corporate/geopolitical bamboo ceiling.

TBH PRC also has tertiary overproduction but there isn't capacity to meaningfully brain drain amount of talent PRC is producing abroad. And it looks like some don't even want PRC talent to risk that due to muh IP. Simulatenously, PRC has enough resources/opportunities at top to reverse brain drain some of the few (relative to population) high end talent that went abroad. 0.01% of PRC are overseas, vs 1% of JP vs 3% of TW & SKR. I think that's a a large power strategy, and specifically a large population power strategy, make so much talent that there's always ample talent, and invest more in absolute terms to retain and even drain from others who can't afford to. Regional powers don't get this playbook.

Last years report on brain drain from top 10/100/1000 indian institutions was staggering, but IMO they'll have the same advantages as PRC once domestic opportunities pickup. Israel's pretty successful for various reasons. Turkey I'm not too familiar with other than they're defense industry is growing.

[alephnerd]

> so they leave for greener pastures abroad

Alternatively, SK and Japanese companies have succeeded in expanding foreign R&D capacity significantly (starting with China in the early 2000s) and there isn't as much a need to remain within JP+SK anymore.

For example, SK and JP expat talent is fairly common in VN, TH, and IN now where they are managing local divisions in those countries.

This largely connects with both Japan and SK's "Flying Geese Paradigm" (雁行形態論) to use Japanese and Korean R&D capacity to build newer markets abroad, and cultivate a secondary tier of R&D capacity.

This was a major reason why Japanese manufacturers heavily invested in electronics R&D in Thailand, Malaysia, China (before 2013), and India along with SK's similar attempts in Vietnam and China (before 2017).

Most of these Koreans and Japanese abroad continue to work for Korean and Japanese companies or (if in the US) on funded scholarships or research from both governments.

> Last years report on brain drain from top 10/100/1000 indian institutions was staggering

Which report?

The only Indian institutions that matter are Institues of National Importance (INI), and very few graduates (usually around 1-5%) from those programs go abroad excluding for graduate study, based on placement statistics since 2017.

During the 2011-17 period there was a structural slowdown in the Indian economy due to an infra lending crisis which was resolved by Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Subramanian, and Krishnamurthy Subramanian's reforms [0]

IME, after the Indian economy stabilized by 2018, most Indians abroad tend to be from non-target institutions, or those who's careers hit a rut as they were unable to be placed at a tier 1 employer (usually a company or government agency that can pay a $10-15k a year starting salary).

> Regional powers don't get this playbook.

Agree to disagree.

The primary difference between China and other countries is that China wouldn't allow significant ownership in R&D FDI within China, thus creating a de facto firewall between domestic talent and R&D capacity abroad.

Most Japanese and Korean companies already tired from that policy and began decoupling in the 2010s, and China was never as closely integrated into the American innovation system as Israel and India (thus leading to the development of local R&D champions).

This is NOT to say China is inferior, but this is to say that there is a level of protectionism in Chinese R&D capacity that isn't as common in other countries (even Russia pre-2022), and increasingly incentivizes Chinese R&D to remain relatively insular.

Most other countries don't have the need to develop hyper-insular R&D capacities as international cooperation remains fairly high.

[0] - https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/05/11/i...