Not really news to me: at least one certain well-known telecom company was scouting specialists from all over the world (from US to EU and Russia) and bombarding them with astronomical salaries. I'm not saying no one used this tactic before China. It's centuries old. But in this case those engineers or scientists are super-rare (unique), extremely valuable and desired. So, in multi-billion strategic industry it's worth paying triple for them.

But, I guess, it takes unbelievable amount of loyalty/patriotism to stay when you're offered so much..