Over the last few years, overseas Chinese students have been returning to China at a faster rate than ever, and the gap between the number of people who returned from overseas and the number of people going abroad is shrinking year on year. About 353,500 students returned to China last year, up 29.53% compared with 2012. That is an increase of 8 times the growth of 3.58% in studying abroad year on year.

“In recent years, some countries have tightened policies to curb the number of graduated international students staying long as a result of a grim employment situation and sluggish economic growth,” said Sun Jianming, director of Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange under the Ministry of Education.

Sun explained the main reason that facilitated the accelerated return of overseas Chinese students is China’s steady economic growth has provided overseas students more opportunities to utilize theirs talents and abilities back home.

Moreover, China’s central government attaches great importance to overseas talents, Sun said. “As President Xi Jinping said at the 100th anniversary of the Western Returned Scholars Association that the government supports students and scholars studying abroad, encourages them to return to China, guarantees them the freedom of coming and going, and supports them in using their talents. President Xi’s remarks have greatly encouraged overseas Chinese students to choose to return back home.“

However, Sun said it’s uncertain that the number of Chinese returnees will continue to rise.

Since the reform and opening-up, the number of Chinese studying abroad reached 3.058 million by the end of 2013, of which 72.38 percent are overseas students who returned to China.