<story><title>China temporarily shuts down thousands of factories in pollution crackdown</title><url>https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-shuts-down-tens-of-thousands-of-factories-in-widespread-pollution-crackdown/ar-AAtZIqD</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nopinsight</author><text>A less mentioned reason for pollution curb is that China wants to attract their top talents back home, as well as global up-and-comers who wish for  more accommodative research funding. Most top Chinese students who studied abroad are currently residing in the US, working in major tech companies and academia.&lt;p&gt;They created the Thousand Talents program for promising and distinguished researchers, Chinese or otherwise, to work and stay in the country with salary comparable to the West, in nominal terms, and many extra privileges. [1]&lt;p&gt;Pollution is a major concern among those who are interested and this gives additional urgency to the government.&lt;p&gt;Basically, they understand very well that top talents are essential for developing advanced technologies they need, and they are pushing very hard to develop native talents and attract promising ones from other countries. This is the Singapore playbook that has propelled their two universities into major institutions in engineering and other fields within a few decades. (Engineering programs in both Singaporean universities are now ranked in the top 10 or 20 in the world. Also, both Tsinghua and Beijing are ranked in the world&amp;#x27;s top 10 in AI publications recently, but they plan for more universities to move up in more fields.)&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Thousand_Talents_Program_(China)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Thousand_Talents_Program_(Ch...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bustrakcan</author><text>&amp;gt; Basically, they understand very well that top talents are essential for developing advanced technology they need&lt;p&gt;Because companies around the world are now aware of the fact that Chinese government steals technologies.  Also, Chinese government is too late trying to get talents back.&lt;p&gt;Most of the laowais (expats) that were in Guangzhou, that were in technology, have left in recent years.  The only foreigners left are africans trying to eek out a living and English teachers who can&amp;#x27;t make it anywhere else.  You can imagine the reasons why: poisonous air that will give you cancer, poisonous food that will give you cancer, dirty water that will give you cancer, horrendous traffic (and everyone driving around honking and disregarding rules), bad mannered locals (imagine jackhammering at 4am, spitting, elbowing, cutting in lines), censorship, foreigners getting arrested without a reason, expensive rent (compared to quality), no way to be connected to the western internet without VPN (and recently, VPN have been failing as well), no way to talk to families overseas.  And this is in the top province in China.  Imagine tier 88 or even tier 2 cities.  (shudder)&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s no reason to be in China other than to make money, then get the hell out. And that seems to be even harder now with the economy stagnating and everyone blowing bubbles into the real estate.&lt;p&gt;Thank god I got out of China.  Many already have.</text></comment>
<story><title>China temporarily shuts down thousands of factories in pollution crackdown</title><url>https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-shuts-down-tens-of-thousands-of-factories-in-widespread-pollution-crackdown/ar-AAtZIqD</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nopinsight</author><text>A less mentioned reason for pollution curb is that China wants to attract their top talents back home, as well as global up-and-comers who wish for  more accommodative research funding. Most top Chinese students who studied abroad are currently residing in the US, working in major tech companies and academia.&lt;p&gt;They created the Thousand Talents program for promising and distinguished researchers, Chinese or otherwise, to work and stay in the country with salary comparable to the West, in nominal terms, and many extra privileges. [1]&lt;p&gt;Pollution is a major concern among those who are interested and this gives additional urgency to the government.&lt;p&gt;Basically, they understand very well that top talents are essential for developing advanced technologies they need, and they are pushing very hard to develop native talents and attract promising ones from other countries. This is the Singapore playbook that has propelled their two universities into major institutions in engineering and other fields within a few decades. (Engineering programs in both Singaporean universities are now ranked in the top 10 or 20 in the world. Also, both Tsinghua and Beijing are ranked in the world&amp;#x27;s top 10 in AI publications recently, but they plan for more universities to move up in more fields.)&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Thousand_Talents_Program_(China)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Thousand_Talents_Program_(Ch...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TomK32</author><text>&amp;gt;  Also, both Tsinghua and Beijing are ranked in the world&amp;#x27;s top 10 in AI publications recently, but they plan for more universities to move up in more fields&lt;p&gt;Sure they moved up in number of publications, but as with so many things in China, what&amp;#x27;s with the quality of this research? Only a few days ago we had a post here on fraud in China scientific work: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=15473719&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=15473719&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>