China Wants Foreign Scientists. The Public Says No, Thanks.

When the Chinese government announced a new visa to attract young science and technology talent, it advertised the move as another step toward becoming the leading scientific power, one to which people from around the globe would flock.

To many in China, it was a gross mistake.

In the days before and since Oct. 1, when the visa was supposed to come into effect, commenters have accused the government of inviting foreigners to steal jobs from Chinese people, at a time when young people are finding it harder than ever to land work. They have suggested that foreigners are being blindly worshiped, a longstanding national sore point.

Prominent influencers have also stoked nationalism or xenophobia, claiming that China will be overrun by outsiders. After Henry Huiyao Wang, the president of the Center for China and Globalization, a research group in Beijing, praised the new visa, people on social media called him a race traitor, and their posts were shared thousands of times.

The backlash grew so fierce that the Chinese Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, People’s Daily, published an editorial calling criticisms of the visa “outlandish” and accusing opponents of misleading the public. Hu Xijin, the former editor in chief of Global Times, a nationalist tabloid, defended the policy, saying in a video that he saw fewer foreigners in China than in Japan or South Korea.