China Aims Financial Lures at Emigre College Graduates

BEIJING —  China, facing a severe brain drain, announced financial incentives today to woo back thousands of college graduates overseas who refused to return after soldiers crushed the student-led democracy movement.

Liu Jialin of the Ministry of Personnel, which oversees employment, said new regulations are expected to aid and subsidize scientific and technological activities of returnees involved in research.

Preference will be shown to the newly returned who are “promising, young and have a low academic position” and could not normally expect to get funds from other channels, New China News Agency said.

It was the first detailed announcement of a program aimed at luring back students since the crackdown on pro-demoncracy demonstrators June 3 and 4. Many Western nations have allowed Chinese students fearful of returning to remain beyond the expiration of their visas.

A July poll conducted by Chinese students at Harvard University showed that only 1% of the 50,000 Chinese studying in the United States planned to return to China. Nearly 58% said that before the Beijing crackdown they had intended to return to what they perceived as a rapidly liberalizing China.