Talent Policies Drive Tech Race While Party Courts Sinologists
Executive Summary:
- Beijing’s education policies support science and technology self-reliance while courting foreign humanities scholars to endorse its global ambitions.
- Several plans released in 2025 double down on achieving breakthroughs in science and technology, in spite of widespread negative social impacts from similar existing policies.
- Global China studies and sinology conferences this year have called on international academics to act as “ambassadors,” promoting Beijing’s global initiatives and praising China’s path to modernization.
For decades, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has viewed highly intelligent people—“talents” (人才) in the official terminology—as a critical and strategic resource of the state. Since at least the 1990s, national development strategies enshrined in the Party Charter such as the “rejuvenation through science and education development strategy” (科教兴国战略) and the “talent strong country development strategy” (人才强国战略) have ensured that identifying and training such people is a top priority. The Party believes that the more talents it cultivates, the more likely it is to advance to the technological frontier. This will help the People’s Republic of China (PRC) dominate the technologies of the future and thus prevail in competition with the West. As General Secretary Xi Jinping put it in 2023, “talent competition has already become the core of the competition for comprehensive national power” (人才竞争已经成为综合国力竞争的核心) (China Education News, June 1, 2023). And in the words of the 20th Party Congress Report, talents are the “basic and strategic support” (基础性、战略性支撑) for national development (Xinhua, October 25, 2022; China Brief, September 26).
In 2025, the Party has advanced two distinct strands of educational reforms and initiatives that build on these broader strategies. One is a doubling down on policies that promote research and development in science and technology. Another is a push to shape humanities programs internationally in ways that better reflect the Party’s interests. These two strands are not directly related—they are driven by different parts of the bureaucracy; but together they form part of a broader strategy that ultimately seeks to make the world safe for the CCP.
Increased Focus on Science and Technology Strength
On October 1, the PRC launched a new international talent visa: the K visa. At least, it was supposed to. Initially announced by Premier Li Qiang (李强) on August 7, the visa responds to calls from the 20th Party Congress to “proactively open up talent policy” (实施积极开放人才政策). It is billed as an improvement on other visa options in terms of permissible number of entries to the country, its validity period, and the streamlined nature of its application process (Baidu/中国K字签证, accessed November 14). Notices on government websites in September stated that specific requirements would be posted on embassy websites overseas (Jiayuan County Government, September 9). But as of mid-November, embassy websites contain no mention of the visa (PRC Embassy in the United States, accessed November 14). Officials are yet to explain why they have not implemented the visa policy. But a contributing factor could be the backlash its announcement produced. Online commentators criticized the policy, fearing it could exacerbate already severe youth unemployment in the country, as well as intensifying pressure on young people (DW, October 2).
This particular policy aligned with other policies unveiled this year even as it drew ire online. These include the release in January of a new ten-year plan, the “Outline of the Plan to Build an Education Strong Country (2024–2035)” (教育强国建设规划纲要 (2024—2035年)); the August announcement of an “Action Plan for Adjusting and Optimizing Disclipines and Major Offerings in Higher Education (2025–2027)” (中央教育工作领导小组印发《高等教育学科专业设置调整优化行动方案 (2025—2027年)); and October’s “Opinions on Strengthening Science and Technology Education in Primary and Secondary Schools” (关于加强中小学科技教育的意见), released by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and six other departments (Xinhua, January 19; MOE, August 28, October 29).
The first of these plans called for “fully constructing an education strong country” (建成教育强国) by 2035, through focusing on “talent competitiveness and science and technology support” (人才竞争力、科技支撑力). The August plan, published by the Central Education Work Leading Small Group, called for establishing and improving mechanisms for adjusting academic programs and talent cultivation models “driven by scientific and technological development and national strategic needs” (建立健全科技发展、国家战略需求牵引的). Part of this involves building a national big data platform to track supply and demand of talent across university programs. The October plan for schools, meanwhile, specifically references national development strategies and the new ten-year plan, and calls for boosting “high-level science and technology self-reliance and strength” (高水平科技自立自强).
Together, these plans constitute an “unprecedented plan to reengineer” the country’s universities, according to reporting from Caixin. This reporting cites one province that has directed all of its universities to cut 40 percent of their academic programs, especially those unrelated to its key industries (Caixin, November 7). The effects of this level of turmoil in the higher education sector are unclear. But they will likely follow a well-trodden path seen in other sectors. A degree of success in innovation and scientific development is to be expected but will come at the cost of social “involution” (内卷). As enormous resources and people’s time and energy are poured into a narrowing band of academic inquiry, intense competition is likely to increase as larger number of highly educated people compete for a smaller number of jobs. This is already evident in some parts of the country. One commentator describes the country’s approach to AI talents as a “human sea attack” (人海战术), in which top performers emerge but at the cost of “enormous attrition.” This includes, tragically, a rising suicide rate among children, adolescents, and those working in science and engineering-related fields (ChinaTalk, November 12).
The costs of this unbalanced focus on a small set of disciplines are also evident in the lack of resources flowing to the rest of the education system. The implementation of reforms to vocational education have largely failed due to issues with funding and too few qualified teachers (China Brief, June 7). And the PRC continues to have “one of the most poorly educated labor forces in the upper-middle-income world” (Foreign Policy, October 10).
Academics Must Promote Beijing’s Initiatives
The second prong of the PRC’s strategy to build a world-beating education sector is an attempt to instrumentalize the humanities to construct legitimizing narratives for its ongoing nation-building project. As a Global Times editorial puts it, “global China Studies carry the core mission of reconstructing the world’s cognitive framework of China” in a way that grasps “the unique genes of Chinese civilization” (Global Times, October 15).
A number of recent international conferences on China studies and sinology have been key platforms for advancing this strategy. On November 13, the eve of the 2025 World Chinese Studies Conference (2025世界中文大会) in Beijing, Xi Jinping wrote to young sinologists attending the event. He expressed the hope that they would “introduce a true, holistic, and comprehensive China to the world” (向世界介绍真实、立体、全面的中国). Referencing his vision for a new global system, he called for them to “become good ambassadors for bridging Chinese and foreign civilizations, and to contribute wisdom and strength to the promotion of the construction of a community of common destiny for mankind” (当好融通中外文明的使者，为推动构建人类命运共同体贡献智慧和力量) (Xinhua, November 13).
The idea that those who study China should act as an extension of the Party’s messaging apparatus is not new. It is not for nothing that the second World Conference on China Studies (第二届世界中国学大会), which took place in October in Shanghai, was organized by the State Council Information Office and attended by propaganda head Li Shulei (李书磊). Another politburo member, Shanghai’s Party secretary Chen Jining (陈吉宁), also delivered a speech, during which he gave assembled academics from over 50 countries and territories their marching orders. The field of Chinese studies, he said, should understand Chinese civilization as “an organically unified whole” (作为有机统一的生命体). Academics should “deeply explain the path of Chinese modernization” (深入阐释中国式现代化道路), “clearly talk to the world about the true, multidimensional, comprehensive China” (向世界讲清楚真实、立体、全面的中国), and “implement the Global Civilization Initiative” (要践行全球文明倡议) (People’s Daily, October 15). This sentiment echoes a statement from the International Liaison Department head in 2024, which described sinologists as those willing to “promote the implementation of the three major global initiatives” (推动落实三大全球倡议)” (CCP ILD, October 28, 2024).
Conferences attendees quoted in official media were largely characterized by their willingness to eulogize China’s rise and criticize the West. A Swedish academic, Jan Oberg, is quoted saying that “China is probably the country in the world with the most far-sighted vision of the future development” (中国可能是世界上对于未来发展最为高瞻远瞩的国家) (People’s Daily, October 16). The British writer Martin Jacques declared that “we are witnessing the globalization of China studies and with it a progressive decentering of Western influence in the field” (Xinhua, October 15). And former Prime Minister of Italy and former President of the European Commission Romano Prodi stated that “any form of decoupling would run counter to the fundamental interests of both sides” (Global Times, October 14).
The Party’s desire to use global academia to shape how the world views it extends beyond its borders. Academics have noted that the country weaponizes research, for instance by denying visas to certain academics (China Brief, July 31, 2023). In 2019, Cambridge University Press censored articles in its journal China Quarterly following requests from Chinese authorities (Wong & Kwong, 2019). [1] And most recently, Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom halted the research of Laura Murphy on forced labor in the PRC for eight months. Murphy says that the university was “explicitly trading [her] academic freedom for access to the Chinese student market” (The Guardian, November 3). A principal vector of Party influence in academia comes through Confucius Institutes. These organizations, which are managed under the PRC’s Ministry of Education, variously have been set up with funding from Huawei, have taught classes on Chinese politics, and have offered services to foreign businesses with a view to deepening economic engagement with the PRC (China Brief, September 26, 2019).
Conclusion
Party strategies to reorient the country’s educational system toward dominating high-end technologies while seeding Party-approved frameworks throughout global academia are having a degree of success. For instance, high-level talents continue to move to the PRC. In the first half of 2025, these included around 50 tenure-track scholars of Chinese descent from U.S. universities (Washington Post, November 6). Most recently, a top cancer drug scientist from the University of Chicago also made his way to the PRC (The Paper, November 5; South China Morning Post, November 12). In the other direction, former employees of organizations established under the Party’s united front system have taken up prominent roles within at least one U.S. university.
The impact of these strategies will necessarily be dual-sided. They are likely to lead to significant breakthroughs and innovations. Policies that exacerbate “involution” are likely to alienate the wider domestic population; while rigid attempts to control who can study China will almost certainly alienate many outside the country, too. The success or failure of these strategies will probably depend on the pushback and how Beijing adapts these initiatives to the headwinds.
Notes
[1] Wong MYH, Kwong Y. “Academic Censorship in China: The Case of The China Quarterly.” PS: Political Science & Politics. 2019; 52(2):287-292. doi:10.1017/S1049096518002093.
