IAS Speaker Series: Professor Wei Li

Diaspora Engagement versus Returnee Recruitment: Comparing Indian and Chinese Policies toward Highly Skilled Diasporas

This week’s IAS Speaker Series featured Professor Wei Li of Arizona State University as she presented her current research on highly skilled migrants who have left India and China for various receiving countries in the Global North. Her studies compare and contrast the past and present efforts that both China and India pursue in order to communicate and engage with their internationally working citizens, as well as to convince such migrants to return and continue their careers in their home country. Seeing as how Wei Li’s research is ongoing, she only briefly offered us her “inconclusive conclusion” of the situation: countries of the Global South including China and India should begin collaborating and sharing their successful tactics of returnee recruitment in order to more aggressively compete with countries of the Global North in attracting highly skilled migrants.