Chinese Emigrants Are Choosing New Destinations - and Transforming Them

Published Mar 1, 2024, 8:30 PM

A new wave of Chinese people are leaving China after the Covid-19 pandemic  and they’re headed to places that aren’t the typical destinations for Chinese immigrants in the past.

Bloomberg’s Lulu Chen tells us how China’s slowing economy, fears over new policies to redistribute wealth and Beijing’s handling of the pandemic created the perfect storm for this exodus. In today’s Big Take podcast, we look at the impact Chinese immigrants who move into these communities in far-flung places have, and what a rising outflow means for China’s future.

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Hey, it's Sarah at Bloomberg. We've got reporters in more than one hundred bureaus around the world, including twenty four in Asia, and that's where we're going today today on the Big Take, I'm handing the mic over to my colleague Wanha in Hong Kong. Here's one.

We are on Prata Rut Bumpin' Road in downtown Bangkok, where Jeffrey Liu has opened his first hot pot restaurant. He recently immigrated to Thailand from China and he's still learning how to pronounce the street's name.

But Batala pompaint, Batta la pomp paint.

Locals say the street resembles the belly of a dragon, and for Chinese that's good func shui for business because it draws money in. That's why Liu started his restaurant here and with so many other Chinese businesses moving in the road is also known by another name, New China Street.

You know what I mean. Chinatown is old and our street is full of new Chinese restaurants and stores. You hear Chinese spoken on the street, and it's also close to the Chinese embassy.

Liu is thirty five and ambitious. He moved to Thailand late last year, leaving behind his family in chung Qing, one of China's biggest cities, and even though he's just arrived, he's got big plans. He wants to open three more hotpot restaurants this year, and he's planning to move his family to Thailand permanently next year.

I had visited Thailand about eight times before moving here. I like Thailand a lot. There isn't much to miss about China.

Liu is hardly alone in saying farewell to China.

The number of people leaving the country in the past two years reached three one hundred and ten thousand for each year.

Lu Lu Chin is Bloomberg's senior editor on Asia Investing.

And that's sixty percent more than the average for the decade through twenty nineteen. What's interesting about this wave is we haven't seen this kind of uptick in migration for years and for the past two years. Suddenly there's a huge uptick compared with the past decade.

Today on our show, a new wave of Chinese are looking for the exit. Why are they leaving and what does it say about China's future. This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm wan ha. Many Chinese who are leaving at the moment are part of the middle class, a group who've seen their incomes rise along with China's economy. In the last two decades.

China rapid economic development overlapped with an error where the Communist Party maintained relatively loose control over private lives, and that was a period when the middle class thought they were better off than their peers even in the US. In some ways, thanks.

To China's economic miracle, pockets of the population became extremely rich. At one point, China was producing billionaires faster than any other country, at the rate of two a week in twenty seventeen, but that boom started to fade and the mood shifted. One of the most significant pivots was in twenty twenty one, when President Shijinping and the Communist Party adopted a policy called Common Prosperity.

S Cheni.

That was aimed to close the wealth gap and lift the country's poorest.

And come seizing Ping for a second term, and he looks at the country and says, wait a minute, China at its core is a communist country and it needs to go back to its roots. Even though some people get rich, the affluent is still the minority, and that's why he brought in the goal of common prosperity to restore that balance.

That Common Prosperity policy has spooked investors and many Chinese. The new policy brought crackdowns on multiple industries, technology, property, education, and even gaming.

From today, children in China will only be allowed to play online video games for three hours a week.

Crackdown on d group underscores Beijing's determination to rein in big tech.

And the government launch of sweeping crackdown on the wonder billion dollar private education industry.

Well, the trickle effect is that when China cracks down on these sectors, it's not just impacting the private companies and the holders behind it. It actually impacts real people. Think of all the people who are working up and down the supply chain. So the effect is vast reaching.

The crackdowns stretched for years, and just as China's middle class was starting to really feel the pinch from the policies, the pandemic struck and it hit a real nerve.

So one of the people we talked to was a person called Jason Swin, who lived a very good life, very wealthy in Shanghai before the COVID lockdowns. He already sent his daughter and wife to London because his daughter was studying there, and for him, he thought that if he stayed away from politics, kept a low profile, he would still have a very good life in China. And then the pandemic hit and it really broke him when his pair died just weeks apart, and even though he tried everything, he was not allowed to see them for one last time. And he told our colleagues that when he was holding their ashes in his hand, that was the moment when he made up his mind that he was going to leave China. And so a few weeks after that he sold all his assets and then relocated to London.

Fast forward to today, the China boom is long gone.

The market has been absolutely hammered. Developers over the years have building a way too many houses.

If you travel around China see half complete buildings everywhere.

High you look at.

Both the economic and the social problems that China is facing, things are only unfortunately getting worse.

Some six trillion US dollars in market value has been wiped out from Chinese and Hong Kong's since its peak in twenty twenty one. Concerns about China's economic future has people like Jeffrey Lu looking elsewhere for opportunities.

After the pandemic. You know, the Chinese economy has been going down here and every industry is just so competitive, So I just wanted to explore and have fun.

Coming up after the break. Chinese immigrants leaving and taking their assets with them. What does it mean for an already struggling economy. We've heard the reasons why people are leaving China. You've got a slowing economy, fears over new policies to redistribute wealth, coupled with the trauma of living in China during the pandemic. Lulu says, it becomes an exodus of capital as well.

It's one hundred and fifty billion US dollars flowing out of China in twenty twenty three alone, based on estimates from Natochus also Henley Partners. They had reports saying that they estimate China saw the biggest millionaire exodus in twenty twenty three as well.

And the number of Chinese immigrating isn't expected to slow down anytime soon.

Looking forward, it's estimated that at least seven hundred thousand people will leave the country in the years up to twenty twenty five.

Those figures put China number four on a list of countries with the largest net immigration now Lulu. If you look at that list, which includes third world countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, China really stands out well.

China is the world's second largest economy, doesn't have any warfare or natural disasters that could cause widespread hunger and the resurgence of net migration sugg as. The people are voting with their feet.

So we've got seven hundred thousand people looking for the exit sign. Where are they going?

Well? For the seven hundred one thousand people estimate, then that's just for US, Australia and Canada, But based on the interviews we've done and the research that we looked into, they're also showing up in other places that are not typical, like Vietnam, Japan, New Zealand.

And A big draw of these unconventional destinations are the inviting policies and business opportunities. Countries like Portugal, Thailand and Indonesia are attracting immigrants with so called golden visas. Those who can invest big chunks of their money in these countries will get full residents or even citizenship in return. While this outflow of people and money is bad news for China, many of the new countries people are flocking to are benefiting from the immigration and investments.

So in Vietnam, for example, it's provided job opportunities, higher wages of senior managers that factories can earn as much as sixty five K dollars a month, and that's about sixteen times the average local wage.

But not all the changes are well received. The influx of Chinese is also creating tension in some places.

In Thailand, it's caused resentment due to rising prices of property, and there's complaints about Chinese disrespecting local customs. Another often heard complaint is that Chinese don't use local suppliers and workers. So the money circles within the Chinese business circle, and it's a very delicate balance, and whenever you have different ethnicities coming into a new community, it's bound to disrupt the balance.

Back in China, while the number of migrants is a drop compared to a population of one point four billion people, the immigration reflects a larger concern about China's future.

For the people we interview, they are worried that the Chinese middle class life that they once enjoyed is in danger. The reason that a lot of middle class Chinese thought that they were better off than their US counterparts was because they had upward social mobility. Their lives were not stagnant, and they always thought that their children would have a better life than theirs. Call it the China Dream, if you will, and right now people are really questioning whether the so called China dream is sustainable.

This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh. This episode was produced by Young Young and Naomi Um. The reporters for this story are Patham Sing, Mowana Jung, Lee Wing, Zulu Win Gwinn Wing, Lisa Do, David Scanlon, and Tao Jung. It was edited by Caitlin Kenney and mixed by Young Young and Bronica Rodriguez. It was fact checked by Tiffany Soy. Senior producers are Naomi Shaven and Gilda de Carley. We get editorial direction from Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole Beemster. Brower is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcast. Thanks for listening to the Big Take. We'll be back Monday.

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