On the Overseas Chinese High-Tech Business in the PRC

The article is devoted to the current scientific problem of determining the place of overseas Chinese (Chinese diaspora, in Chinese: huagiao-huaren — Chinese emigrants with PRC citizenship and ethnic Chinese with foreign citizenship) companies in high-tech business in the PRC. The work is based on the factual data collected by the author in 2023–2024 on 290 operating companies created by the winners of the “Key Business Teams of Overseas Chinese (2009–2017)” competition, as well as the results of a study conducted by the author in 2010–2011 on innovative companies of Chinese specialists with degrees from foreign universities who returned to China. The article presents the author’s methodology for the quantitative assessment of high-tech companies of overseas Chinese in the PRC, which showed that the total number of high-tech companies of overseas Chinese increased from 1.9 thousand to 201.5 thousand, and their share in the total number of companies carrying out high-tech activities in the PRC increased from 8% to 63.5% over 2000–2023. The main hypothesis of the study is that overseas Chinese companies occupy a leading position in high-tech business in China at present. This hypothesis is supported by the quality characteristics of 181 high-tech enterprises (including 130 innovative companies) out of the 290 overseas Chinese companies mentioned above. Most of the founders of these enterprises studied and worked in technologically advanced countries: the USA, Canada, EU countries, Japan, where they gained advanced experience in doing business in the field of new and high technologies – a key advantage in the domestic Chinese market. The companies they have created generally occupy strong positions in most sectors of the manufacturing industry and the tertiary sector of the economy; in several sectors, their positions are assessed as leading. These companies have a high level of scientific and technical capabilities and development potential. Geographically, they are concentrated in key economic regions on the southern and eastern coasts, and the adjacent developing central and western regions of the PRC. Overseas Chinese are at the forefront of scientific and technological progress in China’s manufacturing industry. They are a reliable resource for ensuring the high-tech development of China’s economy, especially in the context of Western sanc-tions.