For many years, China's government worried about the ‘brain drain’. But beginning in 1992, China began to encourage students settled abroad to return for short visits and en-gage in various programmes on the Chinese mainland. Then, in 2001, the government adopted a new policy, encouraging overseas mainlanders to contribute to China's modernisation, even if they stayed abroad, and outlining various ways they could help China. This policy mirrors the strategies of other countries who encourage ‘brain circulation’ and develop a ‘diaspora option’ in order to overcome the loss of talented people. But what forms does this assistance take? Why do people contribute to China's modernisation while remaining abroad? What are the characteristics of those who ‘serve China’, as compared to those who do not? We employ data from a survey in Silicon Valley, as well as two Web-based surveys carried out in Canada and the US with mainland Chinese academics to answer these questions.

Whereas the use of specific smart technologies in various sectors of the tourism industry has been under greater scrutiny in recent years, research that investigates tourists’ acceptance of smart technologies applied as a whole to hotels is largely underexplored. To address this shortfall, a study with a focus on tourists’ acceptance of experience-enhancement smart technologies has been conducted. A technology acceptance model based conceptual framework was developed, followed by a series of interviews with the managerial staff of ten hotels in Hong Kong that adopt experience-enhancement smart technologies. Based on the interview findings, a questionnaire was designed for use in a survey in which data were collected face-to-face from 312 tourists. Structural equation modelling was utilised to reveal the interrelationships between nine technology acceptance parameters. This study contributes knowledge to both real-world practice and research in tourism management.

Since the late 19th century many Chinese leaders have studied abroad, mostly in Japan, the US or the former Soviet Union. Recently, thousands are returning from studying overseas. Is this new cohort of returnees more internationalist than Chinese who do not study abroad? If their values differ and they join China's elite, they could influence China's foreign policy. Drawing on surveys of returnees from Japan and Canada over the past 15 years, we compare their views on “co-operative internationalism” and “assertive nationalism” with the attitudes of China's middle class drawn from a nationwide survey in 2006. Our returnees are both more “internationalist” than the middle class and less nationalistic. So they are likely to support China's increasing international role and perhaps constrain China's growing nationalist sentiment.

To explain why Chinese agriculture has survived following WTO accession, this article examines both domestic and international factors. These include the high world market price, strong domestic demand and limited supplies, trade protectionism, and domestic policies such as government investment and taxation. The article summarizes how China's agriculture has been affected by accession to the WTO.

Does the experience of living in the United States lead Chinese people to believe that China should pursue democracy? Our study produced mixed results, as we found that overseas study resulted in significant attitude changes by various means. Education in social sciences and consumption of foreign media were both associated with supportive attitudes toward democracy, and also led respondents to believe that Western liberal democracy is a good thing and to push for it. Conversely, living overseas had a negative effect on respondents’ support for Chinese democratization, as the longer they had lived in the United States, the better they understood Western democracy and were suspicious about whether China should pursue immediate democratization. Meanwhile, we also find Chinese media has a negative impact on public support for democracy, both instrumental and intrinsic. Finally, factors associated with attitudes toward democracy, such as traditional values, self-expression values, and perceived performance of the Chinese government, were also significant.

This paper will study one of the unique population movements in modern history: the circular movement of students and trainees between China and the Soviet Union from 1950 to 1966. This population movement includes more than 38,000 Chinese who were trained by the leading Soviet Union industrial enterprises, research centers and institutions of higher learning. These returned students and trainees from the Soviet Union captured a considerable number of prominent positions in the Chinese leadership from the 1980s to the 1990s. The explanation of their political impact relies on the domestic country's politics and international context.