China has long cherished overseas students who return to their motherland. Many were honored in a new book published in March. But while names of elites in science and business fields, the prominent politicians are rarely mentioned.

"Politicians are sometimes controversial. If Sun Yat-sen and Zhou Enlai were included in the book, what about Chiang Kai-shek?" said the chief compiler Wang Huiyao. Sun and Chiang were both educated in Japan, and Zhou in France.

However, officials returned from overseas studies have undeniably played a significant role in China. They have been active in the political arena since the era of the Republic of China (1912-49). The group includes some recent senior officials, such as State Councilor Yang Jiechi, who studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) from 1973 to 1975.

But the number of officials who have studied abroad is dwindling, in stark contrast with the rising number of overseas students returning to China after graduation.

Good Old Days

Mao Zedong was the only one among the seven members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of Communist Party of China (CPC) after 1949 not to have studied or lived overseas.

Former leader Deng Xiaoping studied in both France and the Soviet Union, while retired top leaders including Jiang Zemin, Li Peng and Li Lanqing were all students in Moscow.

Of the current 169 senior officials at provincial and ministerial level, 31 of them have studied abroad and 15 hold a formal academic degree from an overseas institution, including 11 State leaders. Ten out of the 15 are from non-Communist parties or without party affiliation, according to the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly.

The survey showed that 12 percent of all provincial or ministerial officials have studied abroad for more than a year, including Zhang Baowen, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and Bai Chunli, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Six provincial officials, including Sun Zhengcai, secretary of CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee and Li Xiaopeng, Shanxi Province governor, studied overseas for less than a year.

Greater obstacles

Officials with overseas study experience are mostly sent to study abroad after serving in the government, while some overseas students also devote themselves to politics after they return.

But it is not easy.

Xiaoyao (pseudonym), formerly a postgraduate student at the LSE, said she had a hard time passing the civil servant exam, which then blocked her out of the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

She added that returned students barely have any privilege. "The commission requirement reads English-majors only. I can’t apply for that since I majored in sociology overseas," Xiaoyu said.

Applicants for most civil servant positions must be Communist Party members, which also made many returnees shun the jobs.

"We mainly encourage returnees to work for scientific research institutes or universities. Why should we encourage them to become civil servants?" said an official from Jiangxi Province, "Every applicant is treated equally. There is no stricter inspection on returnees."

Those who successfully become part of civil servant system often do so thanks to personal connections. Laura Cha Shih May-lung was announced as the deputy chairwoman of China Securities Regulatory Commission in 2001 and Shih has previously said that the message came to her via a friend of the then premier Zhu Rongji, which also surprised her.

Zhang Xiang (pseudonym), an division-level official with the Development Research Center of the State Council (DRCSC), also found an official job without taking an exam. Zhang said he met a senior official with the DRCSC during his PhD studies in Germany and a position was offered to him as he was highly recognized.

"They employed me as a ’special talent,’ which also offered more space in job arrangement," Zhang noted.

In a survey conducted by Wang, none of the 30 Chinese graduates he sampled from Student Union of the Harvard Kennedy School in 2011 became officials, unless the students had worked for the authorities before admittance to the university.

"It is ridiculous to ask people in their 30s to take the exam," Zhang said. His postgraduate friend from Heidelberg University took the exam to work for Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, which Zhang found unbelievable. "After all the money spent on oversea studies, why start all over again at the grass-root level?"

According to the Annual Report on the Development of Chinese Returnees (2013), over 25 percent of returned students have opted to work for foreign enterprises, followed by entrepreneurship and privately-owned enterprises. Government bodies are their last choice.

But not everyone cares for the salary. One returned scholar, who presently works as a vice president of a Fortune 500 company, said that he would like to work for the transportation department in Beijing for no payment considering his expertise in transportation management.

In the West, older people from non-governmental bodies are often recruited into the higher levels of the civil service. "This is to prevent inertia after working at one body for too long a time," Wang explained.

An anonymous professor at the Renmin University of China pointed out that it may be a trend for returnees to become politicians in other countries. "As for China, the questions lie in the development path we choose: an international one or one with Chinese characteristics."

Wang suggested more returnees should be encouraged to work for institutions like the NPC or the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference to offer advice to the authorities.