China Nurtures Startups by Students Returning from Abroad
By wchung | 22 Apr, 2026

China has over 150 firms that help returning Chinese students start up new ventures, according to a statement issued at a national working conference on services for returning Chinese students Monday.

These incubators provide business start-up services for over 20,000 returning students and 8,000 enterprises, said the statement.

“Returning Chinese students have made important contributions to the country’s industrial structure adjustment and innovation promotion efforts,” said Yin Weimin, the minister of Human Resources and Social Security.

Eighty percent of Nasdaq-listed Chinese high-tech enterprises were started by students who returned to China after studying abroad, said the statement.

Additionally, those educated abroad comprise 72 percent of project leaders of key national research projects and over half of the academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the country’s two leading scientific and technological research institutes.

In the three decades from the start of China’s economic reforms through the end of last year, a total of 632,200 overseas Chinese students have returned home. The trend is accelerating, as 399,300 of those returned during the past five years.

An association was started Monday in Beijing by 92 domestic organizations offering services for returning Chinese students. It is planning a platform for returning students with job information, communication resources and information-sharing about human resources, projects, policies and funding.

China will also improve its permanent residence application and approval system to attract more high-caliber foreign talent, said Yin at Monday’s working conference.