Declassified CIA File

U.S. intelligence report on Chinese concerns about a brain drain to the United States, declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency and posted on the Black Vault website. The document is an Intelligence Research Report, number one hundred sixty, dated April thirteenth, nineteen eighty‑eight, and it is notable for its early assessment of Chinese government worries about the return of students who have studied in the United States. This report was released to the public through a Freedom of Information Act request. The request was processed under case number unknown, and the material was declassified and made available on the Black Vault on the date indicated in the archive entry. The source URL is archive.org/download/us-china-intel-CI02280/CI02280_djvu.txt, which reproduces the original State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research file. The document begins with a key judgment: Chinese leaders have evinced growing concern during the past two or three years about the number of students who elect not to go back to the People’s Republic after studying in the United States. Both U.S. and Chinese statistics on this rate of return are poor. However, almost two‑thirds of the total number of Chinese students and scholars sent to the United States have arrived during the last three years and are still in school, making it too early to assess long‑term return rates. Available evidence does not support the conclusion that vast numbers of Chinese are deciding not to go back. By China’s own calculations, forty percent of the total number of students sent abroad since nineteen seventy‑eight—and about one‑quarter of those sent to the United States—had returned by year‑end nineteen eighty‑seven. About half of the Chinese government‑sponsored students had returned by that time. Recurring People’s Republic of China concern about the return rate of students has spawned widespread reports of new, more restrictive policies. Rumored but not yet confirmed measures are said to include reducing the total number of students to be sent abroad each year from eight thousand to three thousand and a dramatic reduction in the percentage of students sent to the United States. A Chinese spokesman has denied these reports. Rumors of more restrictive measures have circulated widely in the past, but available data suggest they have seldom been fully or effectively implemented. For example, despite purported changes in People’s Republic of China policy to the contrary, through nineteen eighty‑seven the number of Chinese approved for study in the United States continued to increase, as did the number of visas issued to spouses. Figures in the report show a steady rise in F and J visas issued to Chinese nationals and their dependents from nineteen eighty‑three through nineteen eighty‑seven. Beijing may take additional steps to increase the likelihood that students will return—such as requiring families to post an insurance bond. According to an official spokesman, Beijing also will tighten control over provinces and work units that send students abroad without central government sanction. Most of these students are thought to go to the United States. Moreover, the government has begun to cut back the number of students enrolled in hard‑science courses in favor of engineering, law, banking, and economics. These measures may have the effect of reducing the percentage of Chinese students who go to the United States. The report notes a growing concern among Chinese leaders that China is suffering a “brain drain,” and that thousands of students sent by the People’s Republic government abroad—especially to the United States—are failing to return after completing their courses of study. Recent Chinese figures, however, cast doubt on whether these concerns are entirely justified. According to an article in the official journal Liaowang in March, twenty thousand out of fifty thousand students and scholars sent abroad since nineteen seventy‑eight have returned, a return rate of forty percent. Virtually all of those who have returned appear to have been government‑sponsored students. Liaowang reports that some twenty thousand out of forty thousand government‑sponsored overseas students have returned. About ten thousand self‑funded students remain abroad, a number that corresponds almost exactly to the total number of self‑funded students China says have gone overseas to study since nineteen seventy‑eight. Moreover, Chinese figures indicate that virtually all of these self‑funded students have come to the United States. Based on fragmentary official Chinese data,