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    Global Voices
  • 14 years ago
    • Categories: World

In China, The Rich Are Fleeing

By John Kennedy, Global Voices

The 2011 China Private Wealth Study, released last week by China Merchants Bank and consulting firm Bain & Company has been generating a lot of buzz on Sina Weibo and elsewhere.

Among the more controversial findings of the study is that 27% of the more than 20,000 Chinese multimillionaires with more than US dollar (USD) 15,000,000 in individual assets have already emigrated abroad, and around 60% of those with more than USD 1,500,000 in assets, 960,000 people, have already or are planning to do so. Reportedly, this ‘rich exodus’ began in 2009.

Get your immivestment here!

Micro-opinion on the study results from Sina Weibo:

http://weibo.com/1951154643/24F22nQ49
曹长修
有人说让一部分人先富起来，然后帮助其他人，我在等。可是先富起来的人办投资移民走了，我去找谁帮助？

Someone once said to let some people get rich first, and then let them help others. Well, I’m waiting. Except that those who got rich first have chosen investment immigration and taken off. So who’s going help me?

http://weibo.com/1237851545/ez76nZTDl3k
南宫冷枫
中国社会需要“富翁”带领大家建设国家，创造美好的未来。但如今中国社会更需要的是能为中华民族道德水准之提升献计献策而身体力行者。但是选择投资移民者，人家不乐意为中华民族做这样的事情。既如此，我们又何必要自找没趣而强留或者指责人家呢?

Chinese society needs the “superrich” to lead everyone in building up the country and creating a better future. But until now what China needs even more is people thinking of and acting in ways which raise moral standards of the Chinese people. But these people who choose to emigrate, they’re not exactly about to do much of this sort of thing for the Chinese people. But even so, what good is there in beating ourselves up over it or imploring them to stay or admonishing them for not?

http://weibo.com/1672396517/ez76FS0y9RR
随按而遇
某朋友自己只有一套住房，却热切的希望房价飞涨涨，问他：你只有一套住房只能自己住，房价涨多高对你来说也没用，而且房价涨了会带动无价也上涨，你为什么不盼望着房价跌呢？这个朋友回答：房价只要涨到了够移民的费用，就会马上卖掉房子去办理投资移民，那时候物价再涨也跟他没有关系了。

A friend of mine has a flat, which he lives in, and is always going on about how he hopes it will keep appreciating. I asked him, you live in the only property you own, what difference does it make to you if the price of housing keeps going up? If the price of housing keeps going up, the price of goods will too, so shouldn’t you be hoping the price of housing goes down? My friend said, I just want the price of the flat to go up enough for me to cover emigration costs, and then I’ll sell it immediately and start the investment immigration process. By then, I won’t care how much the price of goods has risen.

http://weibo.com/1251083160/ez6vIaD2yWU
田方萌
有记者问我对投资移民的看法，我答：“移民是一部分中国人解决不安全感的方式，但中国人口规模实在太大，我们不可能通过移民别国解决每个人的问题。我期待，有责任感的中国精英不只解决自己的问题，也致力于解决大多数中国人的问题。更一进步，通过解决大多数人的问题，解决自己的问题。”

A journalist asked me what my thoughts are on investment immigration. I said, “emigration is a way some Chinese people deal with their sense of insecurity, but honestly, China has too large a population, immigration won’t solve everyone’s problems. I just hope that Chinese elites with a sense of responsibility won’t only seek to resolve their own problems, but will work to resolve those for the majority of Chinese people as well. Looking ahead, fixing most people’s problem will also be fixing their own problem.

http://weibo.com/2104282290/ez6vyrGazLY
yin6qcsqf1a
值得关注的富人外逃：据美国国务院公布的资料显示：2008年10月－2009年9月的上一联邦财政年度获批的EB-5类签证移民（投资移民）总数，已从2008财年的1443人升至4218人，其中七成左右来自中国。而加拿大移民局的数据显示：2009年，加国投资移民全球目标人数为2055人，中国大陆的名额就占了1000名左右。

It’s worth paying attention to the fleeing rich. According to figures published by the US Department of State, in the 10.2008-09.2009 federal fiscal year, the number of EB-5 (investment) immigration visas granted went up by 1,443 from the 2008 fiscal year to a total of 4,218, 70% of which were given to Chinese. Canadian immigration statistics show that in 2009, 2,055 people from around the world were admitted through investment immigration, around 1,000 of whom were from Mainland China.

http://weibo.com/1883776764/ez4nXXIb3S4
移民专家凯文
《以开放心态恭送投资移民者离开》 这类人为中国的经济建设做出了重大贡献，然与此同时，他们也获得了巨大的经济利益，成为中国改革开放的最大受益群体。而今该类人选择了投资移民，就一定意义而言，确实会让中国社会的总体财富下降，但笔者认为我们当恭送投资移民者离开中国。 http://t.cn/hdWhv0

These kinds of people have made an enormous contribution to the building up of China’s economy, however at the same time, they’ve also become major beneficiaries of that, become the group which benefited most from China’s reform and opening up policies. Now, these people have chosen investment immigration. Speaking strictly to the significance of this, China’s overall wealth will take a definite decline, so personally I don’t feel we should be seeing these investment emigres off as they leave China.

The study has also given way to many discussions here and there; this one started by Sina Weibo user ‘Christopher Gold’, is one of the more active, and starts off:

按理说，中国经济崛起，应该留得住财富和人才。错了，从世界各地涌入中国的人多是投机寻宝，而中国60%的千万富翁已经或正在投资移民。2009年来美投资的中国移民比2008年增加了45%。是猪肥了怕被宰，腐败了转移财富，环境污染不得不走，还是预感中国衰退来临，用避险方式实施“中国大逃亡”？匪夷所思！

In theory, China’s economic rise needs this wealth and talent to stay within China. Wrong. Now you have people from all around the world flooding into China seeking opportunity and searching for treasure, meanwhile 60% of China’s [RMB] multimillionaires have already or are in the process of emigrating. 2009 saw a 45% increase from 2008 in the number of people doing investment immigration to the United States. Are they pigs so fat that they’re afraid of getting slaughtered, corrupt, thus transferring their wealth, and finding environmental pollution so bad that they can’t bear to stay, or do they sense that China’s decline is imminent, meaning they’re hedging their bets on the coming of “The Great Escape from China”? Unbelievable!

Oh, but China is in the money now, and 60% of a million millionaires means nothing. There’s more where those came from and no need to make any comparisons with the mass emigration tide seen in post-1989 Hong Kong, because, to give the last word to Twitter-based China affairs expert Bill Bishop:

rich r fleeing meme total overblown

Originally Published at Global Voices:  http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/04/26/china-the-rich-are-fleeing/

Global Voices: Global Voices is a non-profit global citizens’ media project founded at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a research think-tank focused on the Internet’s impact on society. Global Voices seeks to aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online - shining light on places and people other media often ignore. We work to develop tools, institutions and relationships that will help all voices, everywhere, to be heard.
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