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Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

reuters.com

21–30 of 110 posts

Re: Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

#21
post #4

US-biased headline. This is what US-tech firms have been doing for years, dangling carrots on foreign talent. The same reason why the US VC-lobby has been up in arms on anything and everything work visas related. China is the new USA.

Would you rather China, now on its way to being led by a dictator no different than a Mugabe-like figure in Africa, gain this talent to be used to bolster state run entitities — you know they’ll use any foreign tech developed on Chinese soil for government purposes — or let a relatively less corrupt, much freer government like the USA bring this talent over to build industry in the states where people are much more free, and you’re not indirectly helping the next chairman Mao?

And to say something so bold as “China is the new USA” is to link the US to things like unending autocratic control, corruption, etc., the list could go on. So no. I disagree. If China wanted to be the new US it would start where the US started and being in the poor, tired, cold etc.,

Re: Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

#22
post #4

US-biased headline. This is what US-tech firms have been doing for years, dangling carrots on foreign talent. The same reason why the US VC-lobby has been up in arms on anything and everything work visas related. China is the new USA.

The difference is that US lures people to move and eventually become citizens. China want's people to work there, transfer the technology and go away. It's basically impossible to naturalize as Chinese citizen even if you marry a local and live there for decades. Japanese are strict in immigration but they take ten times more immigrants than China. Only about 1000 people get Chinese passport per year.

If a 10 year wait time for greencards and restricting the H4 spouses of those skilled visa workers to work legally is not a carrot, then yes US is doing a great job attracting and retaining talents.

I went behind the carrot for 3 years and then immigrated to Canada. My spouse has dignity now and she is a full time employee just like me earning a very good salary. In US, she lost all her confidence,dignity and was depressed because she was "not allowed" to work though she was a post graduate degree holder.

Any skilled workers who care about their H4 spouses should do the same.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2017/01/28/green...

http://h4-visa-a-curse.blogspot.ca/p/home.html

https://qz.com/797831/the-h4-visa-and-the-desperation-of-ind...

Re: Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

#24
post #4

US-biased headline. This is what US-tech firms have been doing for years, dangling carrots on foreign talent. The same reason why the US VC-lobby has been up in arms on anything and everything work visas related. China is the new USA.

The difference is that US lures people to move and eventually become citizens. China want's people to work there, transfer the technology and go away. It's basically impossible to naturalize as Chinese citizen even if you marry a local and live there for decades. Japanese are strict in immigration but they take ten times more immigrants than China. Only about 1000 people get Chinese passport per year.

> Only about 1000 people get Chinese passport per year.

How did those people earn it? Or is it just lottery based?

Re: Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

#25

Other than the visa-related benefits, what type of monetary benefits do foreigners get for moving to China?

Pay is pretty good (about 70% of Seattle) while living costs are low. I was able to save about 30-40% of my take home over almost 10 years.

I've spoken to tech workers from Beijing and my impression from them is the cost to purchase homes was on par (if not higher) than SV (and Seattle).

Is rent that much cheaper?

Re: Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that US lures people to move and eventually become citizens. China want's people to work there, transfer the technology and go away. It's basically impossible to naturalize as Chinese citizen even if you marry a local and live there for decades. Japanese are strict in immigration but they take ten times more immigrants than China. Only about 1000 people get Chinese passport per year.

> Only about 1000 people get Chinese passport per year. How did those people earn it? Or is it just lottery based?

They were probably former Chinese citizens or Chinese descendants. China is open to immigration for Han people; e.g. during the HK handover all Han living there were granted Chinese citizenship while all non-Han were not, leading to some HK residents without citizenship in any country.

Re: Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

#27
post #6

Maybe, once Wikipedia and Gmail are available full scale.

Wikipedia isn’t blocked in china yet as far as I know. Internet censorship is a big deal for foreigners working in China, especially since playing the cat and mouse VPN game is so tiring.

wikipedia + https isn't blocked? so there's literally nothing preventing people from visiting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1... ?

Re: Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

#28
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay is pretty good (about 70% of Seattle) while living costs are low. I was able to save about 30-40% of my take home over almost 10 years.

I've spoken to tech workers from Beijing and my impression from them is the cost to purchase homes was on par (if not higher) than SV (and Seattle). Is rent that much cheaper?

Yes! You can rent an apartment that retails for a million dollars for $1500/month or less. It is just a huge property bubble, actual residential demand isn’t that strong.

Re: Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

#29
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia isn’t blocked in china yet as far as I know. Internet censorship is a big deal for foreigners working in China, especially since playing the cat and mouse VPN game is so tiring.

wikipedia + https isn't blocked? so there's literally nothing preventing people from visiting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1... ?

In English not a problem, however Wikipedia chinese is blocked from time to time. Note that they did block certain pages (like that one and the DL’s page) before Wikipedia moved to https for everything, then wiki was blocked for a while but they eventually unblocked it.

Re: Chinese capital dangles carrots to lure foreign talent to its Silicon Valley

#30
post #6

Maybe, once Wikipedia and Gmail are available full scale.

Wikipedia isn’t blocked in china yet as far as I know. Internet censorship is a big deal for foreigners working in China, especially since playing the cat and mouse VPN game is so tiring.

Wikipedia started being blocked when I lived in Beijing in 2005. I'd be surprised if it isn't still blocked.
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