Scott Su surveys the landscape of Silicon Valley - spotless two- and
three-storey buildings, new cars racing along the highway and a light
railway service that leaves no noise or smoke.
"Chinese want to take risks and make a fortune. They do not want
to work their way up in a company. They want to go into business on
their own and hit the jackpot with a stock listing. That is why they are
going home," he said.
Mr Su, a native of Xian and graduate of its Communications University,
has worked for three years at Cisco Systems, one of the biggest
companies in San Jose, heart of Silicon Valley, where 20,000 to 30,000
mainland Chinese work. Cisco employs 37,500 people, including 11,000
engineers, one-third of them ethnic Chinese.
Mr Su said: "The return migration began in the middle of last
year, when people began to lose their jobs. Many missions have come from
China, seeking recruits and offering opportunities. The response has
been very good. Many are looking for an opportunity."
Since China allowed its people to study abroad at the end of the
1970s, more than 300,000 have gone to study in foreign countries, mainly
the United States, and only a fraction have returned.
The most popular destination is California and especially San
Francisco, popularly known as Jiu Jin Shan (Old Golden Mountain).
Chinese were among the first settlers here, arriving in the 1840s, and
now account for one third of the urban population.
Silicon Valley has grown up over the past 20 years to the south of
San Francisco, in cities like San Jose and Santa Clara, and has
attracted thousands of mainland Chinese, who are strongest in science,
engineering and computer subjects.
But the collapse of the Nasdaq and the information technology (IT)
bubble, causing thousands of people to be laid off last year, has
shifted the balance of comparative advantages, causing many Chinese to
think of a career at home.
Beijing has not published the number of those who have returned.
Chinese in Silicon Valley estimate the figure at several hundred and say
that it will increase as long as the US economy does not pick up.
It is a repeat of the story of Taiwan, which sent thousands of
students to the US from the 1950s, seeking economic opportunity and
political security. Less than 20 per cent returned home.
This proportion started to rise from the late 1980s, as wages and
opportunities at home improved, with the Government setting up
high-technology zones, companies offering incentives to returnees and
the threat of a Communist invasion receding.
Similarly, Beijing is eager to exploit the downturn in the global IT
market and bring back its overseas talent. At the end of December,
Vice-Premier Li Lanqing launched a week of activities aimed at
persuading Chinese students to come back. More than 360 visited science
parks in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Xian and more than a dozen other
cities to discuss projects.
Mr Li told a national meeting on December 28: "These students
are a precious resource of the nation. We have joined the World Trade
Organisation and the race of global competition, in which the need for
talent is urgent. We must work hard to create the conditions to attract
these talented people to come back."
The Government offers tax breaks, cheap land and other incentives to
such returnees. One who took the plunge was Chris Xie, 33, who came to
take a master's degree at the University of California at Riverside in
1989 and had not expected to return home. In 1998, he set up GreenTea
Technologies to run from his Bay Area apartment but could find no seed
money.
A Shanghai biotechnology firm offered to invest US,000 and gave
him a share of its Shanghai office space. Mr Xie has offices in two
other Chinese cities and is pursuing deals with top computer firms.
GreenTea sells a technology, which Mr Xie developed, that is a platform
for pooling the power of many personal computers together to form one
very powerful computer.
Mr Xie said: "Many have gone back, some because they lost their
job and others because there is opportunity in China. One friend with no
green card moved back with his family because he thinks he has more
opportunities there and a high standard of living."
But Mr Xie's mother and girlfriend live in California and he has got
used to the American, not the Chinese, way of doing business.
"We are maintaining operations in both places. We want to see
how the business develops."
Jiang Wei, who works at Intuit and has lived for 12 years in the US,
said the climate in Silicon Valley had changed drastically.
"I know many people who are actively looking at opportunities to
go home. The US economy is not good, there have been many lay-offs and
the Chinese market is very active. It is different from one to two years
ago.
