Althouse: "A recent report showed that 64% of China's rich are either migrating overseas or have plans to leave the country...."

August 16, 2014

"A recent report showed that 64% of China's rich are either migrating overseas or have plans to leave the country...."

"Politics, though, isn't the most important issue on the mind of Ms. Sun, a 34-year-old Beijing resident who's bailing out.... Her 6-year-old daughter is asthmatic, and Beijing's chronic pollution irritates the girl's lungs. 'Breathing freely is a basic requirement,' she says. The girl also has a talent for music, art and storytelling that Ms. Sun fears China's test-driven schools won't nurture."

WSJ link. Google the text if my link doesn't work for you.

19 comments:

madAsHell said...: Vancouver, BC, Canada is building large luxury condominiums in the downtown core. They start at 6 million dollars. They go out of their way to cater to the Chinese.

It's become so bad.....that they have renamed the province from British Columbia to Bring Cash.

...I'll be here all week!; 8/16/14, 3:19 PM
lemondog said...: Will China attempt to confiscate wealth of those leaving?; 8/16/14, 3:39 PM
Michael K said...: Vancouver has large condo complexes that were never offered for sale locally. Some date back to the Hong Kong turnover.

One of my students a few years was Chinese with a degree from Beijing U where her mother was a professor. She had learned excellent English from a grandfather who chose the wrong time to go back to China. She told me that she came to the US for medical school so she could take care of her parents. She said China has no reliable structure for the care of elderly.

The last I heard, she was doing a surgery residency. She was a terrific student.; 8/16/14, 3:45 PM
David said...: I don't think they are doing this just to get better art schools for their children. They are looking to the US as the place to be if (when?) their society blows up again. As are the newly (and kleptocratic) rich from many unstable or authoritarian countries.; 8/16/14, 3:49 PM
YoungHegelian said...: Given the history of China in the 20th C, how stupid would someone have to be NOT to get their wealth out of China while the getting was good?

While the CCP has stopped murdering people by the millions for the time being, there's no real rule of law in modern China. Folks with this much money are well connected, and are known to the higher-ups. You piss off the wrong guy in the politburo & at best, your wealth disappears, if not you along with it.

It's same thing with the ultra-wealthy in Russia. They get themselves & their money out to Europe as fast as they can. Life in the 1st world is real cushy with a tens of millions of ill-gotten dollars to tide you over until the next payday.; 8/16/14, 3:54 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: madAsHell said...
Vancouver, BC, Canada is building large luxury condominiums in the downtown core. They start at 6 million dollars. They go out of their way to cater to the Chinese.

It's become so bad.....that they have renamed the province from British Columbia to Bring Cash.

Much the same is true in Australia.

When wingers complain about environmentalists I always wish we could ship them off to a large city in China for a month. They would return with at least some respect for the modest environmental protections that we currently have in place.

I have known many Chinese here, none want to return to China, in large part because of the environment and its potential affects on their children. These are not wealthy people seeking to hide vast sums of ill-gotten wealth but simply well educated people who see a state-industrial complex completely out of control.; 8/16/14, 3:59 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: The pollution is a real problem. I know a family who was considering moving to Hong Kong for six months or so for work, but the wife has asthma, so that plan is off indefinitely.; 8/16/14, 4:18 PM
retired said...: I tell people that silicon valley is a cross between NYC and Shanghai, a mush worse place to live than when I was a kid.; 8/16/14, 4:37 PM
Hagar said...: ARM should reflect on his end of the political spectrum being the worst offenders in environmental pollution across the world.; 8/16/14, 4:52 PM
Anonymous said...: Australia's Senate has voted to repeal the carbon tax, a levy on the biggest polluters passed by the previous Labor government. 17 July

ARM says .."
Much the same is true in Australia.

When wingers complain about environmentalists I always wish we could ship them off to a large city in China for a month.."
------
They will start avoiding Australia now according to your logic.

If you think this is about susnshine and fresh air..well ...; 8/16/14, 5:02 PM
Zach said...: Politics aside, the quality of life issue is a major, major consideration.

I share an office with a Chinese postdoc. He's very anxious about finding a permanent job and a way of staying in the US or Canada (that's life as a postdoc). But he's very reluctant to consider a job in China. The pollution is just too bad. Nobody wants to live in a city that looks like Blade Runner.; 8/16/14, 7:28 PM
cubanbob said...: Just an anecdote but my daughter who starts university next week has a Chinese dorm mate whose sister is also attending the same university and both went to birding school in the US. Two kids first in boarding school and then in private university means the parents have money and aren't sure about their kids future in China.; 8/16/14, 7:33 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: A while ago I talked to an entrepreneur in the US who showed me a system which, among other things, enabled people to see a map of pollution in their city, from private data. I was not surprised when he said his target market was mainland China. After some chatter, I mentioned that such data might be considered state secret in PRC.
The look on his face was priceless.; 8/16/14, 7:44 PM
Paco Wové said...: Congrats, ARM. You managed to say 8 whole words before lapsing into mindless partisan duckspeak.; 8/16/14, 8:16 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Paco Wové said...
Congrats, ARM. You managed to say 8 whole words before lapsing into mindless partisan duckspeak.

You are a dummy.; 8/16/14, 10:13 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: lemondog:

Will China attempt to confiscate wealth of those leaving?

That's crazy talk! That's a kind of tyranny practiced only by medieval kings expelling Jews, the Third Reich, and the United States of America.

Also, their money is probably mostly in the Caymans, hidden in accounts owned by companies owned by other companies nominally owned by people who have secretly assigned the beneficial interest to the hidden billionaire. So it would be hard to confiscate, practically, without extensive cooperation from overseas governments.

On another note, I'm in Shanghai right now, and things really are quite gross -- and Shanghai is better than most places in China, I am told. I've been sneezing constantly since I got here, the skies are the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel, and there is occasionally a foul smell, reminiscent of the smell of rotting filth that haunts New York in the summer. The air is not quite as bad as the old London Fog is reputed to have been, but it's pretty bad. And of course, Shanghai is probably five or six times the size of London in the late 19th century.; 8/16/14, 10:25 PM
Paddy O said...: California real estate prices are propped up because of this.; 8/16/14, 11:52 PM
kentuckyliz said...: Lots of Chinese are going to Africa and setting up businesses and industries there. Lots of natural resources that Chinese manufacturing needs.; 8/17/14, 10:54 AM
tim in vermont said...: ARM is from OZ. Not sure why he cares so deeply about US politics then. I remember, when I worked there in the mid nineties. that as you drove west of Sydney, the air stunk of coal smoke. Same with the UK around Birmingham. I wonder if ARM thinks that the environment is as bad in the US as it is where he lives? Maybe that is why he can't understand the concern about environmental protection overreach in the US.

Bad environment does seem to correlate with socialist govt saving costs.; 8/18/14, 8:30 AM