China and "Reverse Brain Drain"
Whereas many developing economies are struggling furiously to combat the phenomenon of brain drain, the tendency for the "best and brightest" of a nation to seek more favorable positions overseas, China is actually promoting it. Specifically, the Chinese government encourages its leading minds to pursue advanced academic degrees abroad and then return home to China, largely offsetting the cost of their education to Western nations.
This practice, termed "storing brain power overseas" by the Ministry of Educating, was met with little success until the 1980s, when Chinese cities began more actively wooing the return of former Chinese citizens. Today, Chinese citizens who receive degrees abroad and then return home are often met with tax bonuses, preferential business loans, better deals on office space, better housing, promises of faster promotions, and access to special zones and industrial parks exclusively for "returnees." In fact, many top positions in Chinese high-tech industry require a foreign PhD.
The Chinese system is one that probably would not work well everywhere, at least in the immediate future. It relies on a strong sense of nationalism and family ties, as well as on having a quorum of suitable positions for highly-educated individuals. For the time being, however, this methodology suits China very well. Currently, all twenty-three national chief scientists in China are foreign-educated returnees.