Beijing - China has launched a major campaign to stem its brain drain and to woo home thousands of students who have left the country to study abroad in the last 20 years, reports Miriam Donohoe.
Tax incentives and preferential treatment will be offered to students overseas to encourage them to return home at the end of their studies. Those who will not come home are to be encouraged to "serve the motherland in various forms" from their places abroad, according to the official People's Daily newspaper.
Since 1978, 280,000 students have left to study abroad. But government figures show that fewer than half of them, 130,000, have returned. There are currently an estimated 10,000 Chinese students studying in Ireland, and the Irish Embassy in Beijing expects the number of student visa applications this year to increase significantly.
Under the new policy, students who return will not only be offered tax breaks but will be promised intellectual property protection on work developed in China.