Wooing sea turtles back to China

Abstract

I agree with most of the observations in the article “Physics in China,” by Charles Day (Physics Today, March 2010, page 33), but I would like to provide some supplementary information and share my experience.Fundamental changes in science are taking place in China. The changes come partly from China’s growing economy and increased government support and partly from the return of Chinese physicists educated overseas.The current trend for those young Chinese physicists, possibly including me, is to return to their home country. Those who study abroad and then return to China are called haigui. Hai means sea; gui means returning and sounds the same as the Chinese word for turtle. People therefore call a returning Chinese scientist haigui, or sea turtle. Right now the world economy is in such a condition that governments and universities in many countries are seeing budget cuts and an oversupply of graduate students, so the job situation for Chinese physicists abroad is not good. Most of them have been stuck in postdoc positions for years. Those well-trained scientists could be a force in China’s future development.To provide some incentives for haiguis, the Chinese government started the so-called Hundred Talent program in 1994. It aimed to attract 100 Chinese scientists back to China by the year 2000. Because of its success, the program was continued, and by 2004 more than 700 haiguis had returned.The incentives for return are good. The Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physics provides as much as CNY 570 000 (approximately $84 000) as a housing allowance and gives research grants up to CNY 2 million. The institute also offers postdocs an annual salary of CNY 180 000. The average salary in Beijing is about CNY 48 000 per year; the Hundred Talents amount would allow new postdoctoral fellows like me to enjoy a higher standard of living in Beijing than in Boston.The Hundred Talent program has attracted mostly postdocs, as faculty salaries at Chinese universities are still much lower than at their overseas counterparts. To aim the program at a higher level of expertise, the Chinese government launched a much more ambitious plan, the Thousand Talent program, in 2009. Its goal over 5 to 10 years is to attract back from foreign countries 1000 Chinese scientists currently working in academia or as industry experts. The offer includes a tax-free CNY 1 million bonus in addition to the generous salary and research grants.Still, many factors make Chinese physicists reluctant to be sea turtles. One big concern is the complicated bureaucracy involved in working in China. Chinese scientists who are accustomed to working in overseas environments may find the lack of personal connection with the top officials in Chinese universities unfavorable to them and may fear that it will negatively affect promotions and grant applications. In addition, housing prices in China are at an all-time high, so even with the financial incentives of the new programs, household budgets can be very tight. To make ends meet, returning scientists may be distracted from their research by having to find additional sources of income.The current performance-evaluation mechanism in China is also a concern for many haiguis; emphasis is placed on quantity rather than quality. Many institutions have financial reward systems based on publications and journal impact factors, so researchers often write multiple papers on the same topic. Some even publish fake experimental results. For example, in December 2009 the International Union of Crystallography had to retract numerous papers because the more than 70 crystal structures they described had been fabricated by Chinese researchers. Also, generally only a publication’s first and corresponding authors receive the financial reward, which tends to discourage collaboration. Other problems include the lack of international journal subscriptions in Chinese libraries and the difficulty or even lack of information exchange; as is well known, in China one cannot access internet sites such as Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and the networking site Facebook.Working in physics in China presents both challenges and opportunities. Let us hope the story of Chinese sea turtles will end up being a happy one.© 2010 American Institute of Physics.