China's approach to recruiting overseas science and technology talent is changing. In the past, it tried to directly persuade researchers to move to China with high salaries, research funds, and dwellings subsidies, but recently it has been lowering the bar for participation by telling domestic researchers, "You don't have to come to China right away," "You can keep your current job," and "Just submit your resume first."
According to ChosunBiz reporting on the 7th, emails have recently been sent one after another to domestic researchers, encouraging them to join China's "2026 National QM Talent Program."
QM refers to China's Qiming plan and is known to be linked to the country's past overseas high-level talent recruitment project, the "Thousand Talents Plan." It targets not only overseas Chinese talent but also foreign experts, aiming at talent in key technology fields such as semiconductors.
The email sender approached researchers by praising them as "specially selected candidates." The sender said, "We are running a national-level program that connects universities, corporations, and research institutions in China with overseas Ph.D.-level researchers," and noted, "We invite only carefully chosen talent based on our own criteria."
The most striking point was the repeated emphasis on "no burden." The sender said, "If you just send the latest resume, we will proceed with the evaluation and application process. At the initial application stage, you only need to provide the core materials, and our team will handle all the remaining work," adding, "There is no need to spend additional time or energy, and it will not affect your current work at all."
In particular, it stressed that even if selected for the program, there is no need to move to China immediately or start work right away. A two-year decision deferral period is given after selection, during which the candidate can maintain their current job and life while considering remote technical consulting or part-time participation.
The sender said, "The reason we first request documents is to secure a selection opportunity (quota) for you in advance, as slots are extremely limited," adding, "We do not want to miss a collaboration opportunity due to the (researcher's) current busy schedule."
The email also set out compensation and support conditions in detail. It said government subsidies of 1.5 million yuan (about 320 million won) could be paid to young talent under 40, and 3 million yuan (about 640 million won) to innovative talent 40 or older, with 3 million to 5 million yuan (up to about 1.06 billion won) in research funding. Dwellings purchase subsidies, settlement subsidies, spousal employment support, child education support, and visa/permanent residency support were also offered.
In response to additional questions about participation status and competition rates, the reply was, "Many Korean scientists have already joined," and "If the resume meets the evaluation criteria, the probability of matching with a suitable host corporations in China is 'over 90%.'"
Experts say this model—keeping one's current affiliation while submitting a resume, providing remote advice, and making short visits to be consolidation with Chinese institutions—is tougher to counter than a direct job change. Because the researcher remains affiliated with a domestic institution, it is difficult to identify conflicts of interest or the risk of technology leakage in advance.
The U.S. FBI has warned that "China's talent programs allow part-time participation by researchers who keep their existing jobs, enabling continued access to researchers' intellectual property, trade secrets, pre-publication data and research methods, and research funding information."
Such emails do not appear to have reached only specific researchers. According to ChosunBiz reporting, they were not limited to some institutes of science and technology or research institutions; professors at major universities such as Seoul National University and Yonsei University also received emails with similar content. A university professor said, "Since late last year, similar emails have been coming frequently."
On Apr. in a domestic research institution that said it received the email, a senior researcher said, "If previously it was at the level of 'There is such an opportunity, so consider it,' this time the salary and compensation, as well as the participation method and deferral period, were presented in considerable detail."
The researcher added, "In Korea, departments or research institutions usually look for people directly, but in China, even academia seems to use professional agencies to find talent," and said, "In this situation, relying only on the patriotism of domestic researchers may make it difficult to retain top talent."