Insight: China quietly recruits overseas chip talent as US tightens curbs
24/08/2023 02:30
By Julie Zhu, Fanny Potkin, Eduardo Baptista and Michael
Martina
HONG KONG/SINGAPORE/WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - For a
decade until 2018, China sought to recruit elite foreign-trained
scientists under a lavishly funded program that Washington
viewed as a threat to U.S. interests and technological
supremacy.
Two years after it stopped promoting the Thousand Talents
Plan (TTP) amid U.S. investigations of scientists, China quietly
revived the initiative under a new name and format as part of a
broader mission to accelerate its tech proficiency, according to
three sources with knowledge of the matter and a Reuters review
of over 500 government documents spanning 2019 to 2023.
The revamped recruitment drive, reported in detail by
Reuters for the first time, offers perks including home-purchase
subsidies and typical signing bonuses of 3 to 5 million yuan, or
$420,000 to $700,000, the three people told Reuters.
China operates talent programs at various levels of
government, targeting a mix of overseas Chinese and foreign
experts. The primary replacement for TTP is a program called
Qiming overseen by the Ministry of Industry and Information
Technology, according to national and local policy documents,
online recruitment advertisements and a person with direct
knowledge of the matter who, as with others, spoke on the
condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.
The race to attract tech talent comes as President Xi
Jinping emphasises China's need to achieve self-reliance in
semiconductors in the face of U.S. export curbs. Regulations
adopted by the U.S. Commerce Department in October restrict U.S.
citizens and permanent residents from supporting the development
and production of advanced chips in China, among other measures.
Neither China's State Council Information Office nor the
ministry responded to questions about Qiming. China has
previously said its overseas recruitment through the TTP aimed
to build an innovation-driven economy and promote talent
mobility, while respecting intellectual property rights,
according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Qiming, or Enlightenment, recruits from scientific and
technological fields that include "sensitive" or "classified"
areas, such as semiconductors, two of the people said. Unlike
its predecessor, it does not publicise awardees and is absent
from central government websites, which the sources said
reflected its sensitivity.
Some of the documents mention Qiming alongside Huoju, or
Torch, a longstanding initiative of the Ministry of Science and
Technology that focuses on creating clusters of tech companies.
The ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Qiming also operates in tandem with recruitment initiatives
run by local and provincial authorities and a government-backed
hiring drive by Chinese chip companies, according to two of the
people and another source familiar with the matter. Reuters
could not independently establish the companies involved.
The U.S. has long accused China of stealing intellectual
property and technology, a charge Beijing has dismissed as
politically motivated.
"Foreign adversaries and strategic competitors understand
that acquiring top U.S. and Western talent is often just as good
as acquiring the technology itself," said Dean Boyd, a
spokesperson for the U.S. government's National
Counterintelligence and Security Center, when asked about
Chinese talent recruitment schemes.
"When that recruitment creates inherent conflicts of
interest or commitment, that can create risks to U.S. economic
and national security."
Curtailing intellectual property leakage via talent flows is
difficult, said Nick Marro, a China analyst at the Economist
Intelligence Unit, because such efforts "can run the risk of
turning into ethnically-charged witch hunts".
ELITE UNIVERSITIES
China's chip industry has flourished in recent years but
faces a shortage of about 200,000 people this year, including
engineers and chip designers, according to a 2021 report
published by the China Center for Information Industry
Development, a government think tank, and the China
Semiconductor Industry Association.
China's newer talent endeavours, which like the TTP focus on
elite-level recruitment, favour applicants trained at top
foreign institutions, three sources said.
"Most of the applicants selected for Qiming have studied at
top U.S universities and have at least one Ph.D," said one of
these people, adding that scientists trained at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Harvard and Stanford universities were
among those sought by China. The universities did not respond to
requests for comment.
Reuters could not determine how many experts have been
recruited under Qiming or associated programs, though thousands
have applied, according to Reuters' review of government
documents.
U.S. officials say that while talent poaching in the U.S. is
not illegal, university researchers risk breaking the law if
they fail to disclose affiliations with Chinese entities while
receiving U.S. government funds to conduct research, illegally
share proprietary information, or violate export controls.
Reuters found more than a dozen advertisements for Qiming
applicants posted since 2022 on Chinese platform Zhihu 2390.HK
and LinkedIn by people who identified themselves as recruiters.
In a February LinkedIn post, Chen Biaohua, who listed his
employer as Beijing Talent Linked Information Technology, asked
candidates eligible for Qiming and Huoju to email him their
resumes.
The post said Chen was seeking "young talents" under 40 with
a doctorate from well-known universities and overseas
experience. He was also seeking applicants who held senior roles
at foreign academic institutions or large companies.
Headhunting firm Hangzhou Juqi Technology posted an ad in
March on ResearchGate, a social network for academics, seeking
people with doctorates from top universities and experience at
Fortune 500 companies to help recruit 5,000 overseas researchers
for Chinese enterprises.
The ad described this effort as serving Qiming and Huoju,
with each researcher able to obtain as much as 15 million yuan,
or about $2.1 million, in rewards. It said that anyone who
recommends a candidate who is then selected for the talent
programs would receive "diamonds, bags, cars, and houses".
Chen and LinkedIn declined to comment. Questions sent to
Chen's employer, as well as to Zhihu, ResearchGate and Hangzhou
Juqi Technology yielded no responses.
One foreign-trained semiconductor expert at the Beijing
Institute of Technology (BIT) was identified on its website as a
2021 Qiming recipient. Ma Yuanxiao is an associate professor at
BIT's School of Integrated Circuits and Electronics, who did his
masters at Britain's University of Nottingham between 2013 and
2015 and his Ph.D at the University of Hong Kong until 2019.
Ma and BIT did not respond to requests for comment.
OPENING WALLETS
Across China, provincial and municipal governments are
pouring resources into the recruitment drive, official documents
show.
One initiative is the Kunpeng Plan, run by authorities in
eastern Zhejiang province, whose 2019 launch was covered in
state media. The Zhejiang Daily reported in June 2022 that the
program aimed to attract 200 tech experts in five years, with 48
already recruited.
In the eastern city of Wenzhou, local authorities'
investment in each Kunpeng professional can reach up to 200
million yuan, including an individual reward, start-up funding
and housing, according to a 2022 talent policy report by the
city government.
A report by the Wenzhou branch of the Communist Party's
Organization Department, which oversees personnel decisions,
said its total budget in 2022 increased 49% from a year earlier,
mainly because it had assigned 85 million yuan to Kunpeng and
similar programs.
One Kunpeng recipient is Dawei Di, a Cambridge-educated
professor at Zhejiang University whose research focuses on
semiconductor optoelectronic devices, the university's journal
reported in 2021.
In Huzhou, also in Zhejiang, employers that recommend
candidates to Qiming can receive incentive payments of up to 1.5
million yuan from the city or district governments if those
people are accepted, according to a 2021 city directive.
None of the city, provincial or Communist Party authorities,
nor Di or his university, responded to queries from Reuters.
'ONE FOOT OUT'
Despite Xi's emphasis on advancing China's chip know-how,
two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said many
Chinese semiconductor experts overseas were wary of returning
because of China's political environment and weaker position in
chip development relative to the West.
"They have no idea if the programs could change overnight or
lose government support," one said.
Zhuji, a county-level city in Zhejiang, reported in October
2022 that it had over 200 applicants for talent programs, mainly
Qiming, but only eight successful candidates from the previous
year had returned to China. Zhuji government's general office
did not respond to a faxed request for comment.
Two people familiar with the matter said some Chinese
scientists, especially those with foreign citizenship or
permanent residency, worried that joining China's government
talent programs could mean forgoing international opportunities
or becoming subject to U.S. investigations.
In some cases, these people said, those experts will be
offered roles at Chinese chip companies' overseas operations.
"Safer to have one foot in China, one foot out," one said.
($1 = 7.1475 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Julie Zhu, Fanny Potkin, Eduardo Baptista and
Michael Martina; editing by David Crawshaw)
((mailto:julie.zhu1@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging:
rm://julie.zhu1.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net/))