Currently, the unsustainable development of talents, especially high-level talents, is one of the major factors that impede the overall sustainable development in China. It is manifested in three aspectsas followed:

    ·Huge talent deficit: by the end of 2013, the number of Chinese studying abroad has reached over 1.6 million, while the number of foreign students in China remained at 356,000, causing talent deficit of over 1 million.

    ·High talent outflow: one of the immediate results of talent outflow is that the quality of talent can hardly get improved at a normal pace. It also causes the loss of resources for education and scientific research in China.

    ·Explicit talent barriers: they refer to the institutional obstacles artificially set in talent mobility, especially the cross-border mobility, which can be manifested by the degree of difficulty in approving the applications for visa,  alien’s residence and work permit, as well as international student study. Between 2003 and 2011, China has only issued 200 green cards averagely per year. Due to unavailability of working visa, international students graduating in China and imported foreign talents can hardly stay in China to legally work.

    The unsustainable development of education and talents in China are closely associated in China.

    The former is caused by the following factors:

    ·Chinese educational reform is lagged behind and lacks innovation, so can hardly cultivate high-level talents.

    ·The uneven distribution of educational resources that prefers infrastructure construction than academic capacity building leads to the reality that China’s education quality is far below the international standards.

    ·The faculty of Chinese higher-education institutions is not internationalized enough.

    To solve the issues mentioned above, we recommend the following policies and measures:

    ·Accelerating the formulation of the entry & exit and residence permit policies for foreign medium and high-level talents. By simplifying the procedure and lowering the barriers in residence permit issuance, China can attract more foreign talents and reduce its talent deficit.

    ·Reforming the educational system and optimizing the curriculum setting to cultivate innovative talents on multiple levels in diverse fields.

    ·Encouraging the cooperation between China and foreign countries to accelerate educational internationalization. China can open up part of the educational market and allow local education institutions to work with their foreign partners on joint academic programs, such as acknowledging each other’s credit system and launch student exchange programs.

    ·Attracting outstanding foreign students to study and work in China. China can relax its regulations on residence and employment of foreign students, and allow them to stay for one year after graduation to gain work experience.