The Big Brains Are Back

China is also an attractive research environment, a giant field lab with 1.3 billion subjects undergoing rapid transformation. "If somebody is concerned with the big themes of social and political change, Beijing is the place to be," says Bell. And the country offers rich opportunities for business professors, since its industries are exploding in an economy that breaks all the rules. Access to key players is also good: "I have more opportunities to talk to manufacturers here than in the U.S.," says Chen.

As for academic freedom, most migrants have no complaints. Bell, who previously taught in Singapore, says he suffered more political interference there than at Tsinghua. "I've designed my own courses [here]"—including one on democratic theory—"with no constraints," he says. And the students' passivity quickly evaporates once they discover they're expected to argue, says Peking University economist Michael Pettis.

Some academics worry that giving up jobs at prestigious U.S. schools to head to China could lead them to become too isolated. Though the Internet makes things easier, "nothing beats face-to-face contact," says Huang. But most scholars agree that the prospects of being able to return to the West depend on how much they can publish, which makes the light teaching load they're offered another advantage. Even academic isolation can prove useful, since there are fewer rivals jostling for access to the same research materials. As all this suggests, moving to China can still prove risky. But like much else in the country's full-tilt economy, while the dangers may be great, so are the rewards.

© 2008