How China Is Hoping to Attract Tech Talent

Lauren Goode: What’s an example of that?

Louise Matsakis: So, for example, there were some Chinese influencers who were spreading these conspiracy theories that Indians were plotting to use the visa to immigrate to China en masse.

Lauren Goode: Interesting. You’ve both covered China’s businesses and workforce for years. Was this backlash surprising to you?

Zeyi Yang: I would say yes, but also no. The no is because I know China has never been an immigrant country, so the idea to introduce a lot of foreign talents to the country, giving them some kind of preferential treatment over others, it’s definitely going to cause some kind of outrage from the population. That part I am sure. The thing is that I feel that after China has been trying to open up to the world for quite a few decades at this point, I was expecting there to be a little bit more patience from the Chinese people because China also wants to be an AI leader at this age. And right now, the only model they can look after is the United States, which has been building on a ton of immigrant talent to build the AI industry. So, I was thinking maybe that kind of policy orientation will push them over the xenophobic obstacles that we are seeing, but unfortunately, the situation that seems to have happened is that it cannot.

Lauren Goode: So there are some cultural challenges to this. I mean, what do you think are some of the other challenges that China will face as it tries to roll out this K visa and attract foreign talent?

Louise Matsakis: I mean, I think the main thing is just that China, like Zeyi said, is absolutely not a country of immigrants. In 2020, only about 0.1% of the mainland population was made up of foreigners, according to one estimate. And it’s also worth noting that that estimate includes people from Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong. These are places that are very culturally similar to China. So, the number of people who come from Africa, or North America, or Europe is just astonishingly small compared to the population size of China. In the US, about 15% of the people who live in this country are immigrants. That’s a huge difference. So, I think that it can be hard for new arrivals to adjust. It’s a difficult language. There’s an entirely different ecosystem of apps and programs that you have to use. I remember the first time I went on a business trip to China, I needed to get the receipt for my expenses, and I was like, “Can you email me a PDF of my receipt?” And the people at the hotel looked at me like I was crazy. And they were like, “We’re just going to send it over WeChat.” And I was like, “Oh.” There are a lot of small things like that that are really different, whereas, because for the last few decades, American culture and American tech companies have been so ubiquitous in the rest of the world, someone who comes to the US from India or from Europe, they’re probably going to be using the same email platforms, the same social media networks. And a lot of the business norms are similar, right? Of course, there’s still cultural differences. And if those people get homesick, they can find an immigrant community wherever they are. They can find food that reminds them of home. That’s not necessarily the case in China. And so, I think the idea of a city like Shanghai or Beijing becoming a truly cosmopolitan hub that is a mix of different cultures is something that I think is really far off from now. I think it could happen, and I think it’s likely that it will happen as the shifts of global power tilt away from the US. I think in this era where we’re not making a lot of good choices, and we’re not really making a lot of friends around the world, it’s certainly possible, but China is just starting from a really different place than a city like San Francisco.