If you choose to believe one newspaper over the others, you are free to do so. But I'm curious to know why you find China Daily more believable than Peoples Daily.

The truth is that the, well, "truth" about the matter cannot be determined from the skewed statistics of a newspaper. The words "it has been reported" don't hold a lot of water in my opinion. Reported by whom? Moreover, logic would dictate that the Chinese government would take firm steps to halt the practice of students studying abroad if it were indeed true that 70% of them didn't return home. On the other hand, I could be completely wrong about this. I'm willing to admit that, but while the jury's out I still reserve the right to call it a silly notion.

I might add that most university students I have polled on this and other related matters have expressed a sincere desire to help their motherland to grow, prosper and gain respect in the eyes of the rest of the world. Those that have expressed an interest in studying abroad do so from the (warranted) perspective that their future careers at home would be better were they to do so.

And not to digress to far from the argument, but I can't help wonder about the statistics from another standpoint. What was the economic situation of those who chose to stay? Are they/were they the spoiled scions of the fat ass rich? How many of them chose to stay abroad for romantic reasons? Well, no matter what, does their choice speak for the population as a whole. I think these are fair questions that need to be asked and answered before we come to the conclusion that they are a representative group of a huge population.

In May of 2000, the Peoples Daily reported that the trend of 1/3 of Chinese students who were studying abroad choosing to stay was reversing. In December of 2004, they estimated that nearly 80 percent were choosing to return. You can find the articles by googling "Chinese students abroad."

Sure there is a questionable believability factor in the above due to the government needing to put a positive spin on things. But nevertheless I think we can agree that the 1988 survey is way outdated especially in light of increased opportunities for the educated in China.

Albeit, I'm also well aware that there are hundreds of thousands of college graduates unable to find work. As an aside to this, I think it of additional interest that, although it wasn't reported in the above articles, many returning students have seemingly adapted the Western trend of using companies as stepping stones to better positions. This is creating a situation where Chinese businesses are becoming more and more reluctant to hire such people. Even still, what this suggests is that the Chinese population is falling in line with the Western concept of "upward mobility." Therefore, as long as there is a perception that one can improve there standing in this society, we won't see a return to the eighties when so many students chose to stay abroad rather than return to their homeland and families. (Of course there is a completely different reality of the 800,000,000 or so who in China who have barely seen the light of the "new prosperity." But that's a whole other issue.

At any rate, I think this discussion started out as more than a few posters asserting that China is so terrible that a huge portion of the population would rather live elsewhere; this argument being further "supported" by the idea that so many study abroad students don't return home. I'm sure we can dispense with the silly notion that 70% of them don't return home. As for the rest of the population, well, I guess we better prepare for a mass exodus.

Yeah, I can see it now - a billion boat people riding the waves to America