China's 'Wealth Drain': New Signs That Rich Chinese Are Set on Emigrating | Hacker News Reader

China's 'Wealth Drain': New Signs That Rich Chinese Are Set on Emigrating

time.com

63 pointstokenadult24 comments

I'd be considering it too if I lived there and had the means. Property rights, while somewhat respected lately in China, could certainly be revoked with a change of the political winds. The Cultural Revolution wasn't long ago, after all. And the imminent collapse of the property bubble can only destabilize things.

This coupled with the ridiculous on-going property bubble, yet lack of affordable housing, sky-rocketing food prices, and other social and economic ills makes me wonder how the Politiburo and Party in general will act to control the situation. What is happening in all the massive, empty cities being built everyday is ridiculous and makes the USA's housing bubble look benign in comparison.

Thank you for the article, tokenadult. Quality translation as well.

I imagine it wouldn't be beyond them to mandate staying in the country.

Mandating business and rich folk to keep x% of assets in country is not unreasonable (it's what Putin has done in Russia, and so far it's worked over there). But I think the bigger worry for the leader group is the huge population of poor and 'middle class' Chinese living in rough conditions with little to no hope for betterment, worsening conditions in lots of sectors, and growing wealth gap. To see city after city of gleaming malls and towering housing developments but almost completely devoid of actual residence was astonishing last winter when I visited for 2 months.

They've seen rapid betterment in the last 60 years going from an average (inflation adjusted) yearly wage of $364/year in 1950 to $7226/year today.

How does that translate to 'little to no hope for betterment'? It's still not great, but it seems the govt are doing as much as they can (and better than anyone else) to improve things.

The average/mean only represents something if it's distributed about the mean.

One of the major issues in China right now is that that's not the case - the creation of a minted upper class is skewing the data and hiding the distribution - which is that there is a sea of poor, below the poverty line, with little to no hope for improvement, and an increasingly wealthy upper and middle class.

Keep in mind that the gap between the lower and middle class in China is much wider than the equivalent gap in the US. In reality people in the "middle class", in relative terms, would be far into the upper classes in the US.

From my other comment: > China's millionaires account for 0.015% of the population

0.015% is hardly skewing the other 99.985%... How about people start actually referring to fact rather than just rhetoric...

Some stats:

36% of the population of china are below poverty line ($2/day) (2005) (down from 98% (1980)) (Little hope for improvement?)

16% of population below extreme poverty line ($1.25/day) (2005) (down from 84% (1981)) (Again little hope for improvement?)

China ranks 42 on the inequality index, the US ranks 41 (That doesn't equate to 'much wider gap')

See how some simple data just rendered most of your statements wrong.

I thought most Chinese are above the poverty line. 500 RMB a month (which is a terrible wage in most parts of China) is over $2 a day, which is over the poverty line.

I'm sure you can find people below $2 a day, not a sea.

There's two big issues - regional differences, and people from poor areas who try to survive in the big cities. Because wages (and the cost of living) are so different, someone from a poor area (i.e. a rural area, or a poor province) will not have any meaningful financial support from their family. But kids with parents in the rich areas get a lot more financial support.

I wouldn't say anything is working very well for Russia, other than oppressing its people.

China's millionares account for 0.015% [GapMinder] of china's population... The article over-states the ramifications, of them leaving.

Economies are built on the backs of the middle/working class. The capitalists sitting at the top exploiting them offer very little in the 'value generation' that grows economies.

There is some truth to that - a lot of the older millionaires got there though connections, or outdated business practices. But that doesn't mean they are all bad, or that the new generations don't have issues.

And I think you are underestimating the damage the loss of capital will do. China is choked for finance (since only connected companies get credit), so losing private capital will really hurt.

And an outright ban is unlikely to work, they will find ways to move their wealth out.

The article only referred to individuals leaving china. Most of the capital is sitting under businesses not individuals. I don't think there is any evidence of an exodus of successful businesses from China, and thus there isn't a risk of significant capital being taken out of the economy.

Ah, the wonders of the rule of law.

China is certainly making progress (as is India, not so sure about Russia) in this area. But anywhere you have to bribe ten people to get things done and your property can be confiscated on a whim you're going to find people that, once they start making real money, want to get out before those in power notice.

Yep, we see this a lot in London, lots of Russians move here as soon as they can afford it. French too.

Im not sure the French come here for the same reasons as Russians.

Unfortunately no word on the current state of Chinese capital controls. I thought it was quite hard to get money out of China.

I live and work here right now. If I want to wire money to my home account, I have to prove I paid the tax on the money first. No such restrictions on bringing money in though, of course. :D

So I imagine it's a bit more complicated for some rich people who acquired their funds through ahem certain means. Of course, if they've already been playing that game, I'm sure they have tricks up their sleeve.

Some of my Chinese friends say, "If you can solve it with money, it isn't a real problem."

Lots of these 'real problems' end up as bottomless money pits.

My Chinese online friend has similar sentiments. Her main concerns are rampant corruption and lack of religious freedom.

My father-in-law is a Chinese millionaire (in GBP terms) and wouldn't dream of emigrating. The things that tie him to his homeland are all the usual elements: shared culture, shared language (very important, as he can't speak English), a huge range of cuisine.

China is a very nice place to live, especially if you are a millionaire, and I would be surprised if a larger proportion of rich Chinese emigrated than do e.g. the USA-born rich.

Another article making the case that money does not buy happiness, in fact, money is some sort of emotional burden.

Perhaps the accumulation of personal weath means nothing if everyone around you suffers.

> Another article making the case that money does not buy happiness

Huh? It's buying them things that they can't get in China.

Sure, you can argue that they'd be happier with those things in China, but that's not up to them. They're using money to get their second choice, those things, but not in China.

Do you want to argue that they would be happier in China without those things? (Note "should" isn't "would".)

What? The article makes the exact opposite case, did you even read it?

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