Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

In every field that involves innovation and entrepreneurship in China, Internet Plus has become a trendy concept. With its potential to become a new economic driving force, the Internet Plus strategy, which was proposed by Premier Li Keqiang in March, also demands a certain level of qualifications to take advantage of it. The question is whether China's talent pool is ready to embrace Internet Plus.

In Silicon Valley, which is famous for its highly developed Internet industry, nearly 70 percent of the software developers working there in 2013 were born outside the US, according to the Silicon Valley Competitiveness and Innovation Project 2015. In the US, a culture of innovation is created from the effect of diversified talent clusters. The US enjoys the benefit of attracting international talent to maintain its leading position in global innovation. Of all patents filed in the US, around one-third are by immigrants. And at Google, Asian-Americans account for 30 percent of its employees, with the majority being Chinese-American.

Zhongguancun, which is known as China's Silicon Valley, has become a hub for creative talent, with a concentration of start-ups. By the end of 2013, the number of employees at firms in Zhongguancun had reached 1.90 million, while in Silicon Valley there are 1.38 million. But in terms of ethnic structure, Zhongguancun has a much lower level of internationalization. Currently, just 0.56 percent of the employees in Zhongguancun are foreign-born, while the number is 36 percent in Silicon Valley. And among the foreign-born workers that Zhongguancun has attracted from overseas, 74.86 percent are ethnically Chinese.

In the Internet Plus era, China should try to attract more foreign talent into the country. This can be done in two ways. 

First, China should cooperate more with world-class engineering universities, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the Israel Institute of Technology. We should build direct links with these universities, and attract competent and creative graduates to work in China.

It's also feasible for China to allow these foreign universities to set up campuses in China to facilitate mutual sharing of educational resources and exchange of talent.

UNESCO has also recognized the importance of entrepreneurship education, describing it as a "third passport," after professional and vocational education.

In China, entrepreneurial and innovative spirit is strong, but education and training services for fostering entrepreneurship remain weak. From top universities in China, the number of graduates who start their own businesses is generally lower than 1 percent, while in developed countries such as the US, the rate is above 20 percent. China could consider upgrading the existing start-up incubators into special colleges dedicated to fostering new businesses. Such colleges could also adopt a Chinese-foreign cooperative model that could attract entrepreneurs from overseas.

Second, China could also develop greater international cooperation in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship, and build up a network for talent circulation,which has gradually become the main form for the flow of international talent, particularly in science and technology. As a large number of Chinese people are working in Silicon Valley and have experience of successfully establishing businesses there, they could circulate advanced information and technology to China by traveling frequently between China and the US.

Also, China and the US offer each other's citizens 10-year short-stay business visas, so travel between the two countries has become quite convenient. Cooperation with world-level science parks would also be advisable, and China could sign agreements with the countries where these science parks are located and offer 10-year visas to people in those countries as well, especially those working in the IT sector.

The author is president of the Center for China and Globalization. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn