This is one example of how elites in this country get to have their own form of socialism whereas say a humble computer scientist must be subjected to the whims of the invisible hand for the sake of preserving market efficiency.
The recent few cases are just baffling. The guy resigns and gets caught on the border exfiltrating trade secrets. For one thing, why resign? Just go - you'll get fired automatically when you don't return. For another, why carry this stuff in your suitcase? Just upload it to AWS in encrypted form sail through the customs with no problem at all. They are clearly not sending their best.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Talents_Program
Strange and I still do not understand why they so explicit about it.
The key is you cannot easy reside, study, work in China key U and technology program freely. But seems you can in Usa. An one sided war with one side powerful but leaking key assets. Hence all these shooting using software and chip.
You can though, it's called defecting. There's a long history of it. E.g. see this list of defectors from the soviet union: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_and_Eastern_Blo...
Place bets on how long this guy will survive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdR-I35Ladk. I strongly suspect he won't last a year.
They are probably just sending some poor students who are pressured into it an exchange for whatever, if they get anything at all besides "not being punished".