cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/44096080
When the Chinese government announced a new visa to attract young science and technology talent, it advertised the move as another step toward becoming the leading scientific power, one to which people from around the globe would flock.
To many in China, it was a gross mistake.
In the days before and since Oct. 1, when the visa was supposed to come into effect, commenters have accused the government of inviting foreigners to steal jobs from Chinese people, at a time when young people are finding it harder than ever to land work. They have suggested that foreigners are being blindly worshiped, a longstanding national sore point.
Prominent influencers have also stoked nationalism or xenophobia, claiming that China will be overrun by outsiders. After Henry Huiyao Wang, the president of the Center for China and Globalization, a research group in Beijing, praised the new visa, people on social media called him a race traitor, and their posts were shared thousands of times.
Platforms have been especially flooded by racist comments about Indians, after Indian news outlets reported on the Chinese visa as a possible alternative to the highly popular H1-B visa in the United States, which now comes with a $100,000 fee.
[…]
The public outcry suggests that China may still struggle to attract the world’s best and brightest scientists, even as the United States has cut research funding and pushed many prominent scholars to consider leaving.
Anti-foreign sentiment has grown in China in recent years, as the government has warned of hostile overseas powers and urged people to report potential spies. China has historically had minuscule levels of inbound immigration, and many cultural and legal barriers remain for foreigners seeking to remain long-term.
When the government proposed slightly loosening permanent residency requirements for foreigners in 2020, it eventually retreated in the face of a similar backlash. (China granted fewer than 5,000 permanent residency cards between 2004 and 2014, according to People’s Daily.)
I think that if I were a Chinese multinational company and it becomes a problem, I’d probably just set up an R&D office abroad in a suitable country that doesn’t have the degree of political resistance.
Probably still slightly bad for China, but I don’t think that it necessarily is going to be some insurmountable problem for Chinese firms.
At this scale of immigration, what matters is going to be the individual’s skillset. They aren’t going to measurably bolster the country’s population. Doesn’t really matter that much whether they settle in China and raise kids and such.
There’s some benefits to settling in China but yeah. As the economy grows further and the population tightens it might become much more acceptable.
How does one take their same sex spouse over to a bigot country?
One doesn’t. At least not while bigotry is still a significant problem. Homosexuality was a crime in Canada till 1969.
It is in China in 2025.
Says here that it was decriminalized in 1997. Marriage, adoption, and many other rights aren’t legal today. And of course there’s discrimination and repression.
I’ll reconsider China as a modern country in 56 years