Chinese educational agencies took the opportunity of the many overseas Chinese students returning home during Spring Festival to publicize new policies designed to attract more overseas students to come back to China to serve their country.

The Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange, the unit under the Ministry of Education responsible for determining the status of returned students, said that those eligible for certificates of status and enhanced visa, entry and other amenities are those scholars with foreign citizenship whose educational credentials have been reconfirmed by China. The policies cover:

• Those who have been engaged by Chinese universities and research institutes as professors or assistant professors, research fellows or assistant research fellows, and working as chief leaders.

• Those who need to come back frequently due to the one-year-long or longer contracts signed with Chinese universities and research institutes to engage in teaching, researching and academic activities.

• Those who act as senior managers (higher than vice president) in Chinese enterprises or companies they have established in China.

• Those who are carrying out work on state-level scientific projects and key engineering agreements signed between the central and local governments and foreign countries.

• Those whose investment in China is above the average level of local investment.

• Those who will go to China's western regions to engage in teaching, researching and setting up enterprises to serve the country's strategy of developing the west.

The aim of the new policies is to make it more convenient for eligible returned scholars to deal with visa and visitor's rights and living situations under local administrations of entry and exit.

(北京晚報 [Beijing Evening News] February 19, 2002 and translated by Shao Da for china.org.cn March 1, 2002）