Will China's "Sea Turtles" Crushes The US Economy
Benjamin Carlson August 6, 2012 06:19
"Sea turtles,” or haigui, is the Mandarin term for overseas-educated Chinese who come home
from abroad. And come home they will, says a recent study from China's Ministry of Education.
BEIJING, China — Some of China’s brightest “sea turtles” are turning down opportunities in Silicon Valley to make a
splash in their country’s emerging tech sector.
After working at top American companies, a growing group of these skilled engineers and managers have returned to help
make China’s technology firms world class. “Sea turtles,” or haigui, is the Mandarin term for overseas-educated Chinese who
come home from abroad.
As the number of Chinese students at US universities surged to 158,000 last year, the number of “sea turtles” has also
surged, with 135,000 re-entering China in 2010 — a quarter more than 2009 — according to China’s Ministry of Education.
The beneficiaries of this trend include companies like Baidu, China’s most popular search engine, itself founded by a “sea
turtle,” billionaire Robin Li. The company has repeatedly been voted the most-desirable employer for top Chinese university
students, and it has also drawn a number of talented “sea turtles” from Silicon Valley — including alumni of Google and Cisco.
<a href="http://s1267.photobucket.com/albums/jj559/365Wildfire/?action=view&current=seaturtle.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/jj559/365Wildfire/seaturtle.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
One of them is Fan Li, the executive director of network infrastructure and cloud computing at Baidu. A bright, frank, fast-
talking woman, Fan came to the US after graduating from Shanghai’s Fudan University in 1996. She studied briefly at the
University of Ohio, and earned a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin, before landing at Cisco.
Yet in 2010, after having spent a decade building a successful career in northern California, Fan decided to uproot and move to
Beijing to take a job with Baidu.
Why did she make the leap? Partly because she wanted to be closer to her parents, and partly because she felt that the time had
come to apply her experience in China.
“I figured, if I’m not coming back at this moment, I’m probably going to stay in the US forever,” she says. “I definitely felt like now
is the time to contribute.”
Like many “sea turtles,” Fan takes pride in using her deep overseas experience to help China’s rise. Over half of Chinese returnees
said that aiding their country’s economic development was a “very important” motivation for their return, according to the 2011
Ewing Marion Kauffmann survey.
For others, better business prospects are the main draw. That was the case for Wang Mengqiu, 37, who was born in Sichuan
province and went to the US a decade ago to obtain a master’s degree in computer’s science at UCLA.
Given the cut-throat competition for good white-collar jobs in China, that is perhaps no surprise. Home-grown talent has a harder
time finding work in China than "sea turtles," who are aggressively courted by the government in its "Thousand Talents" program,
which offers high-level overseas Chinese tax-free allowances of $150,000 to come home.
Most of Baidu's hires, however, come straight out of college - the winners of an education system in which 30 percent of recent
college graduates are unemployed.
Fan says this hunger to succeed is what has propelled China's astronomical growth.
Benjamin Carlson August 6, 2012 06:19
"Sea turtles,” or haigui, is the Mandarin term for overseas-educated Chinese who come home
from abroad. And come home they will, says a recent study from China's Ministry of Education.
BEIJING, China — Some of China’s brightest “sea turtles” are turning down opportunities in Silicon Valley to make a
splash in their country’s emerging tech sector.
After working at top American companies, a growing group of these skilled engineers and managers have returned to help
make China’s technology firms world class. “Sea turtles,” or haigui, is the Mandarin term for overseas-educated Chinese who
come home from abroad.
As the number of Chinese students at US universities surged to 158,000 last year, the number of “sea turtles” has also
surged, with 135,000 re-entering China in 2010 — a quarter more than 2009 — according to China’s Ministry of Education.
The beneficiaries of this trend include companies like Baidu, China’s most popular search engine, itself founded by a “sea
turtle,” billionaire Robin Li. The company has repeatedly been voted the most-desirable employer for top Chinese university
students, and it has also drawn a number of talented “sea turtles” from Silicon Valley — including alumni of Google and Cisco.
<a href="http://s1267.photobucket.com/albums/jj559/365Wildfire/?action=view&current=seaturtle.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1267.photobucket.com/albums/jj559/365Wildfire/seaturtle.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
One of them is Fan Li, the executive director of network infrastructure and cloud computing at Baidu. A bright, frank, fast-
talking woman, Fan came to the US after graduating from Shanghai’s Fudan University in 1996. She studied briefly at the
University of Ohio, and earned a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin, before landing at Cisco.
Yet in 2010, after having spent a decade building a successful career in northern California, Fan decided to uproot and move to
Beijing to take a job with Baidu.
Why did she make the leap? Partly because she wanted to be closer to her parents, and partly because she felt that the time had
come to apply her experience in China.
“I figured, if I’m not coming back at this moment, I’m probably going to stay in the US forever,” she says. “I definitely felt like now
is the time to contribute.”
Like many “sea turtles,” Fan takes pride in using her deep overseas experience to help China’s rise. Over half of Chinese returnees
said that aiding their country’s economic development was a “very important” motivation for their return, according to the 2011
Ewing Marion Kauffmann survey.
For others, better business prospects are the main draw. That was the case for Wang Mengqiu, 37, who was born in Sichuan
province and went to the US a decade ago to obtain a master’s degree in computer’s science at UCLA.
Given the cut-throat competition for good white-collar jobs in China, that is perhaps no surprise. Home-grown talent has a harder
time finding work in China than "sea turtles," who are aggressively courted by the government in its "Thousand Talents" program,
which offers high-level overseas Chinese tax-free allowances of $150,000 to come home.
Most of Baidu's hires, however, come straight out of college - the winners of an education system in which 30 percent of recent
college graduates are unemployed.
Fan says this hunger to succeed is what has propelled China's astronomical growth.
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