During more than 60 years since the founding of the PRC, and particularly during the last three decades since the inception of reform and opening-up, China has accomplished miraculous achievements. It is now the world's No.2 economy and has the largest foreign exchange reserves in the world. China, with its cheap labor, has benefited from globalization and built an export-oriented economy that spreads "made in China" products to every corner of the world.

However, a Chinese economy based on this growth model is under mounting pressure as the nation strives for sustainable development. China faces the pressing task of advancing from its position at the low end of the global industrial chain, and changing from the world's workshop into a world center for creativity and innovation. To realize this, what China needs most is not land resources or energy, but people with the right knowledge and skills. As the Nobel laureate Yuan Tseh Lee said at the ceremony launching Taiwan's Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship: "Even the so-called economic miracle will collapse without constant sustenance from brilliant minds, and we'll eventually lag behind the world."

As the famous saying by renowned military strategist Sun Tzu goes, "Without long-term planning, short-term achievement is impossible; without considering the problem as a whole, individual action is impractical."

Cultivating and attracting talent is the mission of the whole nation, not just that of the educational administration. The establishment of the service center for overseas students with the Ministry of Education and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, the introduction of individual incentives, or reforms to the education system alone are far from adequate to build and sustain the talent pool China conceives. What's more important is to have visions for the future, so China worked out the Recruitment Program of Global Experts and promulgated the National Medium- and Long-Term Plan Outline for Developing High-skilled Talent.

The Recruitment Program hunts down research, technical, managerial, and entrepreneurial talent from abroad and offers them appropriate rewards and conditions and positions that bring the most out of their expertise. Much more significantly than merely attracting high-caliber professionals, the program plays an active role in upgrading China's overall environment for talent cultivation and innovation. Outside experts are expected to serve as seeds for further changes in China's classrooms and workplace and eventually lead to better policy making. Although it's not cheap to establish a first-rate laboratory with the most advanced equipment, it's much harder to create an academic and professional environment that cultivates talented people and brings their abilities into full play. Though the program is not perfect, it is a big step in the right direction.

The U.S., the largest receiver of international talent, doesn't have an equivalent of China's Recruitment Program, but its employment-based immigration system functions similarly. It allows preference to be given to five groups of people, the first one being Priority Workers, defined as persons with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers and multinational managers or executives, when issuing immigrant visas, which entitle the holder to a green card.

In the U.S., green card holders enjoy basically the same entitlements and benefits as citizens, excluding the right to vote and be elected in federal and state elections. This is enough to attract talented personnel. China doesn't have a permanent residency system, so has to work out individual policies that give desired immigrants citizen or super-citizen treatment in areas such as housing and children's schooling. These statutes, usually attached to different programs at national or regional levels, are often incongruous with and in some cases even entirely contradict one another. In some parts of the country local governments dole out permanent residency status to migrants with the skills they need, but such "green cards" are only valid in local cities.

In China, considering the size of public institutions and state-owned enterprises, government still needs to play an active role in cultivating and attracting talented people. Whether it is government policy or market forces that decide the mobility of human resources, it should be recognized that the competition for bright minds is more complicated than that for material resources. China's focus should be shifted from introducing short-term policies to using the knowledge and skills of individuals to build institutions conducive to the long-term development of a healthy pool of talent. In the larger picture, this would not only mean new laws, but the establishment of a fair, transparent, objective and democratic mechanism covering the whole process of incubating, culling, importing and employing capable personnel. A system of rules that won't get overturned with a change of leadership, this mechanism will help China tap into the full potential of human resources to fuel its development.

WANG HUIYAO is director of the Center for China & Globalization, vice chairman of China Western Returned Scholars Association (WRSA), chief of the economy division of the Consultative Commission of Overseas Experts with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, and is also a visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. His works include Contending for Talents and National Strategy: Talents Change the World.