Are people really moving to China? A country that will never give outsiders citizenship?

For a country that has been a "brain magnet" for a good century, a "brain drain" might just be "talented people from wherever choosing to go somewhere else".

Case in point: an EE I know who is finishing his master's[1] is considering interesting proposals from solid (but not top tier, think Texas not Massachusetts) universities from the US, Germany and China. While he's afraid of the culture gap with China, it's clearly the one that has the more interesting things going on technically and the one he feels more excited about

[1]Engineering by itself is a bachelor's level degree here

Probably more that China is producing more new talent through education, and Chinese scientists and researchers moving back to China.

you wouldn't want citizenship anyway; safer to remain a foreigner while living/working there, even long-term

HK will give you right of abode which is almost as good as citizenship so long as you stay in HK. I suppose you could still be deported for high crimes or some such but that almost seems like the best case scenario if that happens.