ABSTRACT
Sending students abroad provided no guarantee that China would benefit from their skills. As discussed in the previous chapter, most Chinese who studied abroad – the overseas Chinese scholars or OCS (留学人员) – did not return. Those who did return faced sparse technical and financial resources, were cut off from their international peers, or had difficulty reintegrating into Chinese society. Promises made to returnees evaporated locally, where the foreign-educated experts ran into the age-old problems of bureaucracy, discrimination, lax standards, and a culture hostile to innovation.
