China Erred By 'Ignoring' Tech Experts From India, Says State-Run Media

Beijing: China has made the "mistake of ignoring" science and technology experts from India, an article in the country's state-run official media said today. The report underlined that China should attract high-tech Indian talent to maintain its ability to innovate at a fast pace. The article comes at a time when US President Donald Trump's administration is proposing an overhaul of the popular H-1B visa, which Indian IT firms use to send the country's top talent to the United States. China's state-run Global Times, which has otherwise been carrying articles that are critical of India almost on a daily basis, acknowledged that "China has made the mistake of ignoring Indian talent, and has instead attached a greater importance to talent coming from the US and Europe."

This is the second instance of a rare positive write-up by the Chinese daily, which had recently praised India's record-breaking achievement of putting 104 satellites into orbit on a single rocket, terming the launch executed by ISRO as a "wake-up call" for China's space industry. Though, another article in the same daily implied that India oversold it's achievement. In an attempt to prompt Beijing, the article had said that India has done a better job than China in promoting its satellite launch technology.

Today's article acknowledged that "China has perhaps not been working hard enough to attract science and technology talent from India to work in the country." It went on to say that "Over the past few years, China witnessed an unprecedented boom in tech jobs as the country became an attractive destination for foreign research and development centres, however, now some high-tech firms are turning their attention from China to India due to the latter's relatively low labour costs. Attracting high-tech talent from India could be one of China's options for maintaining its innovation ability," it said.

Referring to reports about US-based software firm CA Technologies, which has disbanded its nearly 300-person research and development team in China and set up a team in India with around 2,000 scientific and technical professionals over the past few years, it said, "with a sufficient young talent pool, India is becoming increasingly attractive."

"China cannot afford to risk a decline in its attractiveness for high-tech investors. The nation is among the third echelon in cutting-edge technology fields and is working to catch up with the US and the result of its efforts will decide whether China will maintain its status as an emerging global economic power," the article stated.

China, which has witnessed a sharp decline in its labour force in recent years due to an ageing population, boosted its budget for technological innovation by allocating billions of dollars of incentives for start-ups and research firms.

Over the years, China has carried out a lot of measures, including increasing research spending and creating an investment-friendly environment for high-tech firms, to enhance its innovation capability. "However, one issue has become increasingly prominent: The talent pool in China is not large and flexible enough to meet the demand for rapid expansion of innovation capability," the article said.

Writing about the United States and its highly-successful enterprises in Silicon Valley, the article stated, "In Silicon Valley, a considerable number of software developers working are born outside the US. China should also strive to attract more foreign talent into the country as it aims to build itself into a world-class research hub."

"A total of 1,576 foreigners were granted Chinese permanent residence in 2016, registering an increase of 163 per cent from the previous year. It seems that China is aware of the importance of tapping into international talent," it stated.

Drawing a comparison between Chinese and Indian engineers and the costs involved in the IT sector, the article said, "Some reports claim that the cost of employing an Indian engineer is just half the cost of hiring a Chinese worker, which means Indians could see their revenue more than double if they came to work in China."

"Some enterprises in Southwest China's Guizhou Province provide convenience for Indian talent in terms of housing, insurance and transportation and could enjoy a much better standard of living in Guizhou cities than in Bangalore," it stated.

India's IT sector employs about 10 million people and is projected to grow 8 per cent in 2017 to $154 billion, according to IT industry body Nasscom.