While the US has dawdled over H-1B reform, China's programmes to attract academics and entrepreneurs have continued to grow. So have, as Harrison's first anecdote suggests, those in Singapore and Korea as well as others in nations such as Australia, Canada, Chile and the UK.


"The truth is that after all that attention, both these Taiwanese and Chinese geniuses wanted to stay here, even though we weren't making it easy. But as Taiwan and China and all these countries become more comfortable places to do business, that isn't going to last."


Finally, he underlines another of Wadhwa's key points. "There aren't that many of these people around. Our loss will be somebody else's gain."


All the Talents


In 2008, the Chinese government launched the 'One Thousand Talents', an RMB40bn (£4bn) scheme aimed at wooing academics and entrepreneurs across 3,000 different strands.


Significantly, the scheme has expanded into both a 'Thousand Young Talents', reflecting the need to catch start-up founders early, and a 'Thousand Foreign Talents', a modest- but-significant attempt to attract non- Chinese nationals. That latter breaks with long-standing political and cultural traditions that the country would build its future using its own human resources.


According to David Zweig, professor at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology who has made returnees a specialist area, right now the entrepreneurship side of the strategy is yielding better results.


"On the academic side, there is still a strong feeling that resources are allocated according to the old boy's network," he says. "So, although there may be the promise of advanced research facilities, returnees feel


that existing staff have first call on them. Certainly I've heard reports that returnees can have to wait three years or so before they can expect to get grants from state bodies like the Natural Sciences Foundation and the Ministry for Science & Technology.


"But among entrepreneurs, there is more enthusiasm. People can see opportunities. And there the bureaucracy works in your favour."


In addition to One Thousand Talents, Zweig here cites an increasing number of local schemes fostering start-ups.


"One is in the city of Wuxi [in the eastern province of Jiangsu]. Already you have venture capital in China, with funds looking to invest in Chinese businesses, but in Wuxi they have the '530 Plan'. As well as providing facilities and accommodation, the city


will put up half the money for your business," he says. "Now that's very attractive."


The early waves of Chinese returnees are widely thought to have been built upon the phenomenon of what Wilf Corrigan, British-born founder of US technology group LSI, has called 'tomorrow's newspaper'.


Through their experiences as academics and/or Silicon Valley staffers in the US, these sea turtles had access to technologies that were not new but nor had they yet reached the Middle Kingdom during its first phase of economic liberalisation. This much was confirmed by a 2004-05 returnee survey Zweig undertook which found that 55 per cent cited "access to a technology that wasn't available in China" as either the main or second reason for going home.


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