China quietly recruits overseas chip talent as US tightens curbs

HONG KONG/SINGAPORE/WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters): For a decade until 2018, China sought to recruit elite foreign-trained scientists under a lavishly funded program that Washington viewed as a threat to US interests and technological supremacy.
Two years after it stopped promoting the Thousand Talents Plan (TTP) amid US investigations of scientists, China quietly revived the initiative under a new name and format as part of a broader mission to accelerate its tech proficiency, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter and a Reuters review of over 500 government documents spanning 2019 to 2023.
The revamped recruitment drive, reported in detail by Reuters for the first time, offers perks including home-purchase subsidies and typical signing bonuses of 3 to 5 million yuan, or $420,000 to $700,000, the three people told Reuters.
China operates talent programs at various levels of government, targeting a mix of overseas Chinese and foreign experts. The primary replacement for TTP is a program called Qiming overseen by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, according to national and local policy documents, online recruitment advertisements and a person with direct knowledge of the matter who, as with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.
The race to attract tech talent comes as President Xi Jinping emphasises China's need to achieve self-reliance in semiconductors in the face of US export curbs. Regulations adopted by the US Commerce Department in October restrict US citizens and permanent residents from supporting the development and production of advanced chips in China, among other measures.
Neither China's State Council Information Office nor the ministry responded to questions about Qiming. China has previously said its overseas recruitment through the TTP aimed to build an innovation-driven economy and promote talent mobility, while respecting intellectual property rights, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Qiming, or Enlightenment, recruits from scientific and technological fields that include "sensitive" or "classified" areas, such as semiconductors, two of the people said. Unlike its predecessor, it does not publicise awardees and is absent from central government websites, which the sources said reflected its sensitivity.
Some of the documents mention Qiming alongside Huoju, or Torch, a longstanding initiative of the Ministry of Science and Technology that focuses on creating clusters of tech companies. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Qiming also operates in tandem with recruitment initiatives run by local and provincial authorities and a government-backed hiring drive by Chinese chip companies, according to two of the people and another source familiar with the matter. Reuters could not independently establish the companies involved.
The US has long accused China of stealing intellectual property and technology, a charge Beijing has dismissed as politically motivated.
"Foreign adversaries and strategic competitors understand that acquiring top U.S. and Western talent is often just as good as acquiring the technology itself," said Dean Boyd, a spokesperson for the US government's National Counterintelligence and Security Center, when asked about Chinese talent recruitment schemes.
"When that recruitment creates inherent conflicts of interest or commitment, that can create risks to US economic and national security."
Curtailing intellectual property leakage via talent flows is difficult, said Nick Marro, a China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, because such efforts "can run the risk of turning into ethnically-charged witch hunts".
China's chip industry has flourished in recent years but faces a shortage of about 200,000 people this year, including engineers and chip designers, according to a 2021 report published by the China Center for Information Industry Development, a government think tank, and the China Semiconductor Industry Association.
China's newer talent endeavours, which like the TTP focus on elite-level recruitment, favour applicants trained at top foreign institutions, three sources said.
"Most of the applicants selected for Qiming have studied at top U.S universities and have at least one Ph.D," said one of these people, adding that scientists trained at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard and Stanford universities were among those sought by China. The universities did not respond to requests for comment.
Reuters could not determine how many experts have been recruited under Qiming or associated programs, though thousands have applied, according to Reuters' review of government documents.
US officials say that while talent poaching in the US is not illegal, university researchers risk breaking the law if they fail to disclose affiliations with Chinese entities while receiving U.S. government funds to conduct research, illegally share proprietary information, or violate export controls.
Reuters found more than a dozen advertisements for Qiming applicants posted since 2022 on Chinese platform Zhihu and LinkedIn by people who identified themselves as recruiters.
In a February LinkedIn post, Chen Biaohua, who listed his employer as Beijing Talent Linked Information Technology, asked candidates eligible for Qiming and Huoju to email him their resumes.
The post said Chen was seeking "young talents" under 40 with a doctorate from well-known universities and overseas experience. He was also seeking applicants who held senior roles at foreign academic institutions or large companies.
Headhunting firm Hangzhou Juqi Technology posted an ad in March on ResearchGate, a social network for academics, seeking people with doctorates from top universities and experience at Fortune 500 companies to help recruit 5,000 overseas researchers for Chinese enterprises.
The ad described this effort as serving Qiming and Huoju, with each researcher able to obtain as much as 15 million yuan, or about $2.1 million, in rewards. It said that anyone who recommends a candidate who is then selected for the talent programs would receive "diamonds, bags, cars, and houses".
Chen and LinkedIn declined to comment. Questions sent to Chen's employer, as well as to Zhihu, ResearchGate and Hangzhou Juqi Technology yielded no responses.
One foreign-trained semiconductor expert at the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) was identified on its website as a 2021 Qiming recipient. Ma Yuanxiao is an associate professor at BIT's School of Integrated Circuits and Electronics, who did his masters at Britain's University of Nottingham between 2013 and 2015 and his Ph.D at the University of Hong Kong until 2019.
Ma and BIT did not respond to requests for comment.