China has an enormous amount of housing. Their prices are still sky high
Most martial arts schools with ties to China have stories of expatriation or of practicing in the dark in basements.
All those houses bought in Vancouver aren't just about financial investments, they're also a potential bolt-hole if things get ugly again.
As a Chinese-American, whose family and friends all profited greatly from China's rise, I do wonder, how much of that profit was just being lucky enough to support the "winning team," and how much blood was shed on the other side.
I guess the only true mindset is a neutral one.
In China, things have come back. People who escaped were invited back with promises of better treatment, even given platforms (eg, martial arts) but who knows what we Earthlings have lost from people who didn't. Biomechanics, biology, art, technology, philosophy...
The buyers would have to fund ALL the infra to power, water, feed such ghost city homes, and where will they work?
I used to work with a guy in SF that had a consultancy that would bring chinese 'students' on tours of the US to various universities to have them pick where they wanted to go to school.
These were the children of chinese oligarchs - and they would land in SFO with luggage full of cash - and, not knowing how things worked in the US, would jusr bribe their way through every transaction at ~$10,000 a time...
The chinese oligarchs own more of america than you may know.
In other words, we must learn how to improve the economy without turning the cities into antlers.