Thousand Talents, revisited: research funding as a talent recruitment tool from Europe to China

China joined the ‘global talent race’ with a wide array of talent attraction initiatives which are funded by national and local government institutions. The talent funding targets highly skilled returnees - typically Chinese but also foreigners mostly from the global West, including Europe - to work in local universities, research facilities and companies. One of the most controversial programmes was the Thousand Talents Plan (TTP), a policy which combined research funding with skilled migration, which discontinued and morphed into newer, similar descendants. Previous literature has, however, not sufficiently examined the migration aspect of the talent programmes. This chapter addresses the gap by analysing the status quo of talent funding, using Shachar’s competitive immigration regime as the conceptual lens. Through a document analysis of 56 Chinese official documents and job advertisements, combined with 20 interviews with 15 talent funding recipients and experts from Europe, the findings show that the selective recruitment of individuals, based on their potential to contribute to China’s development, is firmly engrained in the country’s migration governance. Talent funding is person-centred, offering flexible research funding, tax-free allowances, residency and relocation benefits, and many other perks, all in exchange for knowledge transfer.