The Local Politics of Talent Attraction in China

• In Event: Chinese Politics Mini-Conference: New Frontiers and Perspectives on Chinese Politics

Abstract

This study examines China’s city-level race for global talent since 2008. Specifically, it asks: why are some governments more likely to deploy local innovations to attract talent while others lag behind despite their similar need for highly skilled labor, and why do some local talent programs succeed while others have failed woefully in China? Drawing on extensive interviews and archival research in Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Changchun, this project compares how policymakers, employers, and elite talents in sought-after fields engage in a talent race at the local level. It speaks to questions of policy making and policy experimentation in the Chinese context and to the broad question of how developing countries can reverse the brain drain.
Underneath a central directive to reinvigorate China through human resource development, local governments in China have become the key drivers in the global race for talent. The decentralized nature of talent recruitment politics calls for a city-by-city study because of the wide variation in the local talent retention responses. First, this project looks at 27 major cities, including all 22 provincial capitals in the mainland and the five cities that are specifically designated in the state plan. It draws on an original dataset of local policies that aim at bringing in high-level talents from overseas. The large-n analysis reveals successful talent attraction in three divergent cities—Shenzhen as a global technology hub, Hangzhou as an emerging first-tier city, and Changchun as a traditional industrial city. Despite the variation, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Changchun all actively respond to the central government’s call for global talents and reap the fruits of their attraction policies. Findings from fieldwork in the three cities questions the conventional belief that societal groups are marginalized in the policy-making process in authoritarian regimes. Each in its own way, successful cities continually update their policies and incentives, and are responsive to the needs of related firms and campuses. Despite Xi’s era of recentralization, talent policies remain surprisingly decentralized. On the one hand, local governments have been delegating local talent recruitment to firms and campuses. On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party regulates the market for highly skilled labor through the cadre responsibility system. Under the pressure of promotion, key actors such as local officials, recruiters and talented people are forced to compete in the city-level race for talent.

Author

• Yannong He