The concept of strategic surprise has rarely been defined precisely and generally conveys the idea of a badly or non-anticipated threat which unexpectedly hits a state, shaking its conceptions and its position towards security. Until the 1980s strategic surprise would take the form of a nuclear surprise attack. In the 1990s, the idea of a so-called "computer Pearl Harbor" was put forward, which would neutralize the complex systems supporting western societies. With the 9/11 attacks, the threat of a strategic surprise suddenly materialized. After delineating the legitimate scope of the notion of "strategic surprise", highlighting the variability of its effects and underlining the importance of the "target" and of its vulnerability, this paper aims exploring some possible trails and answers, which would attempt to reduce not only the probability of an attack but also its impact.

Since the 1990s, the Chinese government has issued new measures to encourage the return of the most highly qualified individuals, and has promoted a discourse that tends to honour, or even to praise the repatriated "brains" in China and their involvement in homeland development. The return migration has accelerated since 2000. In order to understand the rationale behind the current return migration, we would like to review the historical relations between China and its overseas population. In this paper, we attempt to address the question of patriotism among Chinese living abroad, in addition to analyzing the returnees' impact on the contemporary development of China, in political, economic and social spheres.

Report written by Christian Schülke, Junior Research Fellow and Pierre Bouygues, Intern, Ifri Brussels.