China’s K visa faces a backlash: It made its debut at a bad time

Local job-seekers are worried about the tech sector’s hiring slump

- JULIANA LIU

You might have thought Beijing’s effort to attract global STEM talent would fire up legions of patriotic keyboard warriors eager to celebrate America’s relative decline. Instead, its launch of a new work visa has sparked an online furore, highlighting the underbelly of China’s much-vaunted industrial policy.

The decade-long ‘Made in China’ campaign to ensure the country can compete with the best of the West in 10 key industries including robotics, electric vehicles and pharmaceuticals—has been largely successful. Technical prowess, exemplified by January's DeepSeek moment, has fired up China’s stock market. But it’s not been enough to fill the gap left by the collapse of its property sector, which once accounted for as much as 32% of the economy.

Consumer pessimism was on display last week when the country wrapped up an eight-day holiday break. Fresh data suggest travellers were pinching their pennies. Spending was subdued, road trips replaced flights and box-office sales missed expectations, according to Bloomberg News.

Against this backdrop, it wasn't an ideal time to debut the K visa—what some have called China’s equivalent of America’s H-IB. Its details are scant, though it comes as part of Beijing’s post-pandemic moves to loosen restrictions on dozens of countries to revitalize travel and consumption.