This study, authored by Cong Cao together with Jianan Huang and Hong Liu, constructs a novel dataset of 3,534 Chinese national academy member profiles, employing bibliometric analysis, historical archives, and web scraping techniques to trace academic exchange patterns from 1905 to 2023, with particular focus on the post-1949 People's Republic of China era. While progress has been made in understanding such interchanges, the (dis-)continuity over a span of 120 years still presents a visible gap in the literature. Our account reveals a decreasing presence of foreign-educated members amid the rising trends of globalization. There also has been an increasing presence of scholars from underrepresented regions – regular members from Western China and foreign members from developing countries, despite their seniority but lower research performance, have benefited from preferential election policies. Notwithstanding a growing role of mid-career returnee scholars in China, elite-level academics may experience research underperformance after returning. Our results stress the need for implementing more meritocratic, returnee-friendly brain gain strategies and avoiding “over-treatment” in attracting academic talent.