This paper argues for a flexible identity and citizenship framework to explore how return migrants, "haigui," have readapted and re-established themselves back into Shanghai society, and how they have used their talents, knowledge and "guanxi" networks to optimise their chances of success. It argues that these return migrants, as talent circulators in their circulatory migration process, have adopted a flexible identity and citizenship, to confront their conflicting emotions and negotiated sacrifices for the well-being of their individual self and family as they expand their socio-economic and territorial space.