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Since the topic of 'brain drain' was introduced to the United Nations' debates in the late 1960s, policy thinking on skilled migration has shifted its focus from discouraging emigration in the 1970s to encouraging returns in the 1980s, and to facilitating 'brain circulation' since the 1990s. This paper, based on a comparison between China and India in the Information Technology (IT) industry, suggests that how the highly skilled leave the home country in the first place is equally important as how they return or contribute back through transnational connections. IT professionals' migration from India with minimum government intervention may have more sustainable developmental effects than aggressive government programmes in China aimed at promoting return and transnational relations. This is because the migratory process of the Indian IT professionals is built into the dynamics of the global high-tech industry. By comparison, many programmes in China are dissociated from industry despite the heavy investment from the government. But the Chinese programmes may be more conducive for the development of basic research. In short, a proper mix of government policy and market mechanism seems a key to achieving sustainable brain circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]