Today, The New York Times ran a story about U.S. educated Chinese scientists who are returning to China.  Shi Yigong, pictured above, is a naturalized American citizen and 18 year resident of the U. S.  He resigned from the faculty of Princeton University to become the dean of life sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing. 

This should not be surprising considering the growth of China's economy and the resultant national pride.  Also, China's government has been wisely increasing its spending on research and development for the last decade. 

Nontheless, returning to the homeland has its trials.  From the article:
The tension has spilled over into the Chinese blogosphere, where Dr. Shi has been attacked as insincere and untrustworthy. In a posting in 2008, Liu Zhongwu, a professor of science and engineering at South China University of Technology, said that Dr. Shi should be excluded from any projects that touch on China’s national interests. “Bear in mind, he is a foreigner,” he wrote.

It will be an uphill battle, but an exciting challenge.  Dr. Shi said,

“In the United States, everything is more or less set up. Whatever I do here, the impact is probably tenfold, or a hundredfold.”

China is luring scientists home