Home is now seen as the land of opportunity for Chinese tech graduates in US

Zhuang Yong, a fourth year PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University, has already made up his mind to return home after completing his doctorate. The reason? He believes the US has only a slight lead over China in his field of research – network science and machine learning – and that is not worth the sacrifice of living so far away from family.

“The US pays researchers better but in China I expect to find an abundance of opportunities in my field,” he said. Zhuang is among a new wave of students and researchers in the technology field who want to be educated in the US but always see themselves returning to China to work.

“Working in China has its own problems and I’m bracing for a more stressful work environment and lower quality of life, but what I will gain from the opportunities and being with my family is a lot more than what I’ll lose,” he said.

More than 2.5 million Chinese students educated overseas have returned home, with the number doing so totalling 432,500 in 2016 alone, up 58 per cent from 2012, according to Frost and Sullivan.

“The main drivers behind that trend include faster growing salaries, more opportunities and a sense of belonging in China, as well as the invisible promotion barrier for Asians in the US and [President Donald] Trump’s tighter immigration policy,” said Neil Wang, Greater China president of Frost and Sullivan.