The State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA; ) is an external name used by China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. SAFEA was previously its own agency of the government of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

(PRC) that operated under the State Council and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. It was responsible for recruiting foreign experts outside of mainland China - including Taiwan and the special administrative regions - for work in the PRC, and managing the training of Chinese nationals outside of the PRC. It was headquartered in

Zhongguancun Zhongguancun ( Chinese: 中关村) is a major technology hub in the Haidian District, Beijing, China. Zhongguancun occupies a band between the northwestern Third Ring Road and the northwestern Fourth Ring Road in the northwestern part of Bei ...

Haidian District Haidian () is a northwest urban district of Beijing, bordering Xicheng, Beijing, Xicheng and Fengtai, Beijing, Fengtai. It is in area, making it the second-largest district in urban Beijing area (after Chaoyang, Beijing, Chaoyang), and is home ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

History

SAFEA founded in 1956 and abolished in March 2018, when its functions were absorbed by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) as part of the

deepening the reform of the Party and state institutions The deepening the reform of the Party and state institutions ( zh, , p=Shēnhuà dǎng hé guójiā jīgòu gǎigé, s=深化党和国家机构改革) was a large-scale reform of the institutions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Peopl ...

. The SAFEA name was retained to interact with foreign parties. The name was transferred to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in March 2023 as part of the plan on reforming Party and state institutions.

Recruitment

The fields targeted for foreign recruitment included the economy, technology, management, education, engineering, science, culture, and healthcare. Foreigners usually worked in foreign invested joint-ventures, private industry, state-owned enterprises and public construction projects.

Programs and organizations supervised

* Thousand Talents Plan (TTP) * China International Talent Exchange Foundation (CITEF) * China Association for International Exchange of Personnel (CAIEP) *China Services International * Conference on International Exchange of Professionals

Partnerships

SAFEA has had partnerships with universities and professional bodies in several countries, including: *

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD i ...

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

Project Management Institute The Project Management Institute (PMI, legally Project Management Institute, Inc.) is a U.S.-based not-for-profit professional organization for project management. Overview PMI serves more than five million professionals including over 680,0 ...

Reaction

According to the 1999 Cox Report, SAFEA's CAIEP is "one of several organizations set up by the PRC for illicit

technology transfer Technology transfer (TT), also called transfer of technology (TOT), is the process of transferring (disseminating) technology from the person or organization that owns or holds it to another person or organization, in an attempt to transform invent ...

through contacts with Western scientists and engineers." In March 2022, a federal jury convicted a man of fraudulently obtaining U.S. visas for CAIEP employees. A 2019 report by the

United States Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), stood up in March 1941 as the "Truman Committee," is the oldest subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (formerly the Committee on Govern ...

stated that SAFEA's contracts with foreign experts "include provisions that violate U.S. standards of research integrity, place TTP members in compromising legal and ethical positions, and undermine fundamental U.S. scientific norms of transparency, reciprocity, and integrity." SAFEA has been the subject of

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

investigations. In 2010, Noshir Gowadia was convicted for selling classified information, primarily regarding the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit, to a SAFEA official. SAFEA has been reported to operate nominally private front organizations such as Virginia-based Triway Enterprises.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Zhongguancun 1956 establishments in China Recruitment Brain drain Science and technology in the People's Republic of China Technology transfer One institution with multiple names