http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2077139,00.html
QuoteBEIJING — Is China facing a "Wealth Drain"? Do too many of the best and brightest — and above all, richest — Chinese dream of packing up their accumulated capital, and going to live abroad?
According to a new study, a majority of Chinese who have more than 10 million Yuan ($1.53 million) worth of individual assets find the idea of real—estate investment a lot less tempting than so—called "investment emigration." Nearly 60% of people interviewed claim they are either considering emigration through investment overseas, or have already completed the process, according to the 2011 Private Wealth Report on China published by China Merchants Bank and a business consulting firm Bain & Company. The richer you are, the study suggests, the likelier it is that you resort to emigration. And among those who possess more than 100 million yuan, 27 % have already emigrated while 47% are considering leaving.
The fact that more and more rich Chinese are seeking to emigrate is turning into a hot topic in China, and statistics prove that the trend is a real one. According to Caixin online, a Chinese website specialized in finance, the compound annual growth rate of overseas investment by Chinese individuals approached 100% between 2008 and 2010. The compound growth rate of the Chinese who used investments to emigrate to the United States in the past five years is 73%.
So why are wealthy Chinese so eager to leave their country? The simplest answer is that there are a lot of things in China that even the richest cannot buy (emigration is obviously not one of them). China's rich are fond of saying that nothing "is a problem if money can solve it." Among the irresolvable problems that spark emigration, there are material ones, and emotional ones.
The former includes issues like laws and regulations, the education system, social welfare, inheritance tax, quality of air, investing atmosphere, food safety, ability to travel, and so on. In short, these are the material factors that any State must provide to its people in order to ensure their happiness. In emerging countries such as China, these factors are still often found wanting.
Emotional reasons behind rich people's immigration are generally linked to the lack of a sense of personal safety, including safety of personal wealth, as well as fear about an uncertain future.
It thus appears that it is a certain "lack of well—being" that is pushing wealthy Chinese to emigrate. The results of the Private Wealth Report are very much in line with other studies. A recent Gallop Wellbeing Survey showed that most Chinese people feel depressed, even as China has sky—high economic growth rates that Europe and America can only dream of. According to the survey, which asked respondents to choose between "thriving," "struggling," and "suffering" to describe their situation, only 12% think themselves as "thriving," while 17% describe themselves as "suffering," and 71% "struggling." The number of Chinese who feel that their life is improving is comparable to the number of Afghans and Yemeni who feel the same way, while the number of persons feeling they are "struggling" is approximately the same as in Haiti, Azerbaijan and Nepal.
It is a paradox that, in a country where more and more people are getting richer by the day — albeit to the detriment of the poor, who have benefitted very little from the country's new wealth — the general feeling of well—being should remain at rock—bottom. The poor grumble while the rich flee.
The truth is that, unless they emigrate, the wealthy have to suffer from the same causes of unhappiness as the poor. Take food safety. Last year, when a Chinese woman living in Canada was asked by the International Herald Tribune why she had left her country, she said it was because of the Sanlu (toxic baby milk) case, and also because of the "hatred against the rich." Her answer highlights the fact that, as the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider, and the poor are complaining more and more, the rich are also getting more nervous. Some rich people even worry that the "redistribution of wealth might start all over again."
Although the danger seems overblown for now, people are starting to wonder where the public hatred of the rich might lead. The wealthy also know that they bear some of the responsibility for the unequal distribution of wealth. The so—called "original sin of wealth" is not totally without foundation, and it is often difficult for the rich to stop enriching themselves. Fluctuating market conditions bring out a survival instinct that sometimes makes them commit illegal or immoral acts. Once they realize this, they often chose to avoid the trap by emigrating and starting afresh.
The situation would not be as serious, of course, if the number of people deciding to leave were low. But once a few personal choices take the shape of a massive drain, the consequences of their departure on the economy and on society, through the example they set, can be dire.
An even bigger cause of concern is that, when rich people pack their money and leave, not only are they no longer identifying with their country, but they are also avoiding their social obligations. While the reason behind these people's decision matters little, the undeniable fact is that they make money from this society, but they refuse to give anything back.
Rich people who decide to move to a foreign country should know that, by doing so, they are stoking the dissatisfaction among those who stay behind. The poor get angrier because they cannot leave, and their hatred towards the remaining rich grows even bigger. This is the most corrosive thing that can happen to a society.
That's a hell of a wrench in the works that says Beijing will be the new New York for the next century. I suppose the real factor will be whether they completely divest their capital from the Chinese market and put it into other currencies on other exchanges, or simply become expats.
The fear of a new redistribution would probably weigh the most on that decision.
Beijing will be under sand within 2 decades, so I think that's unlikely.
It will more likely be the new Timgad.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:31:53 PM
Beijing will be under sand within 2 decades, so I think that's unlikely.
It will more likely be the new Timgad.
Why under sand?
Quote from: Disco Pickle on June 16, 2011, 05:33:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:31:53 PM
Beijing will be under sand within 2 decades, so I think that's unlikely.
It will more likely be the new Timgad.
Why under sand?
http://www.gluckman.com/ChinaDesert.html
The dunes are already within 75Km of Beijing, and all attempts to stop the spread of the desert area have failed.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:35:25 PM
Quote from: Disco Pickle on June 16, 2011, 05:33:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:31:53 PM
Beijing will be under sand within 2 decades, so I think that's unlikely.
It will more likely be the new Timgad.
Why under sand?
http://www.gluckman.com/ChinaDesert.html
The dunes are already within 75Km of Beijing, and all attempts to stop the spread of the desert area have failed.
Hadn't heard about this. Thanks for the link.
There are 19,612,368 people in Beijing. What do you suppose will happen when Beijing can no longer be reliably supplied with food due to the loss of roads, etc? Especially given that the problem is hardly restricted to the capitol itself?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:41:03 PM
There are 19,612,368 people in Beijing. What do you suppose will happen when Beijing can no longer be reliably supplied with food due to the loss of roads, etc? Especially given that the problem is hardly restricted to the capitol itself?
Civil war, I imagine.
Huh. It occurred to me that these two things may be connected.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:41:03 PM
There are 19,612,368 people in Beijing. What do you suppose will happen when Beijing can no longer be reliably supplied with food due to the loss of roads, etc? Especially given that the problem is hardly restricted to the capitol itself?
Coupled with the eminent sausage fest in their future, I could see a starving, angry, mostly male population potentially causing all sorts of problems for pretty much everyone else on the planet.
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on June 16, 2011, 05:45:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:41:03 PM
There are 19,612,368 people in Beijing. What do you suppose will happen when Beijing can no longer be reliably supplied with food due to the loss of roads, etc? Especially given that the problem is hardly restricted to the capitol itself?
Civil war, I imagine.
No, I rather imagine they will attempt to invade their neighbors. Failing that, a mass-migration of unprecedented proportions, which will have the same effect.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:47:03 PM
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on June 16, 2011, 05:45:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:41:03 PM
There are 19,612,368 people in Beijing. What do you suppose will happen when Beijing can no longer be reliably supplied with food due to the loss of roads, etc? Especially given that the problem is hardly restricted to the capitol itself?
Civil war, I imagine.
No, I rather imagine they will attempt to invade their neighbors. Failing that, a mass-migration of unprecedented proportions, which will have the same effect.
Fair enough. But again, it occurs to me that may be a factor in why the richest are leaving while they can.
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on June 16, 2011, 05:48:27 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:47:03 PM
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on June 16, 2011, 05:45:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:41:03 PM
There are 19,612,368 people in Beijing. What do you suppose will happen when Beijing can no longer be reliably supplied with food due to the loss of roads, etc? Especially given that the problem is hardly restricted to the capitol itself?
Civil war, I imagine.
No, I rather imagine they will attempt to invade their neighbors. Failing that, a mass-migration of unprecedented proportions, which will have the same effect.
Fair enough. But again, it occurs to me that may be a factor in why the richest are leaving while they can.
It was the first thought that hit my mind when I saw the thread title.
This century's going to be more interesting than I thought.
Fucking fuckitty.
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on June 16, 2011, 05:52:34 PM
This century's going to be more interesting than I thought.
I have been saying this for years.
Horrorology is the new anthropology.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 06:48:00 PM
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on June 16, 2011, 05:52:34 PM
This century's going to be more interesting than I thought.
I have been saying this for years.
Horrorology is the new anthropology.
NEWSFEED!!
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:47:03 PM
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on June 16, 2011, 05:45:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:41:03 PM
There are 19,612,368 people in Beijing. What do you suppose will happen when Beijing can no longer be reliably supplied with food due to the loss of roads, etc? Especially given that the problem is hardly restricted to the capitol itself?
Civil war, I imagine.
No, I rather imagine they will attempt to invade their neighbors.
I get the impression a culture of national pride pushes this to be less likely.
If you eat someone elses country, you look like you need them.
Quote from: Placid Dingo on June 18, 2011, 06:08:31 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:47:03 PM
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on June 16, 2011, 05:45:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:41:03 PM
There are 19,612,368 people in Beijing. What do you suppose will happen when Beijing can no longer be reliably supplied with food due to the loss of roads, etc? Especially given that the problem is hardly restricted to the capitol itself?
Civil war, I imagine.
No, I rather imagine they will attempt to invade their neighbors.
I get the impression a culture of national pride pushes this to be less likely.
If you eat someone elses country, you look like you need them.
If your population is going to have to eat sand, you'll fucking do it anyway.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 18, 2011, 06:09:38 AM
Quote from: Placid Dingo on June 18, 2011, 06:08:31 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:47:03 PM
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on June 16, 2011, 05:45:11 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 16, 2011, 05:41:03 PM
There are 19,612,368 people in Beijing. What do you suppose will happen when Beijing can no longer be reliably supplied with food due to the loss of roads, etc? Especially given that the problem is hardly restricted to the capitol itself?
Civil war, I imagine.
No, I rather imagine they will attempt to invade their neighbors.
I get the impression a culture of national pride pushes this to be less likely.
If you eat someone elses country, you look like you need them.
If your population is going to have to eat sand, you'll fucking do it anyway.
Well yeah. Just not plan A.
Yeeeep. This is gonna get mighty interesting.
Looks like the Chinese government is trying a push back to maintain environmental integrity, but it is being hampered by obstructionist regional bureaucrats and similar types, who are used to being able to do whatever the fuck they want, as the Emperor is far away.
Hence the explosion in Chinese protests against corrupt officials this summer. Mass Group Incidents, as the security services call them. Sometimes, though not always, instigated on behalf on the CCP to put pressure from below as well as above on reluctant backsliders. On top of China's reluctance to get involved in the coal mergers and acquisitions last year, this signals a change in policy at the top of the government in regards to energy and environmental issues. I wouldn't count them out just yet.
Most of these people leaving, incidentally, are connected to those corrupt officials, I am reliably informed by devoted Chinese politics watchers. That they've only fled with 800 billion yuan between them is the most surprising part.
See, this is a good, defining moment in China's "political evolution." The exposure and and rooting out of the corruption will bring them closer and closer to the level of "Westernized" or 1st world society the Chinese powers that be desire.
Very interesting.
I googled around for a bit trying to find information on Beijing's desertification that is not based on that one "Beijing Desert Storm" article, which is over 10 years old, but quoted and cited everywhere.
As it says, they are trying, with a project dubbed "China's Great Green Wall", but apparently they're going the wrong way about it, planting monocultures of trees in all the wrong places, and it's not doing much and sometimes even making the problem worse.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/20291/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/11/china-forests-deforestation
But I wondered, if it's not working, are they keeping it up?
The most recent news, says that there is some progress being made, things have been going a bit better in the second half of the past decade. But only a tiny bit. And that it will take 300 years to make a recovery.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/04/china-desertification
"China makes gain in battle against desertification but has long fight ahead. Expert warns it could take 300 years to recover desert land resulting from over-cultivation and water demands"
"There were small signs of improvement. In the five years to 2010, the authors estimated the area of desert had shrunk by an annual average of 1,717 square kilometres. This was 40% better than the results from 2000-05, the first in China's history to ever show a gain."
So, yeah. Still not very good.
Perhaps some are trying to get out before the authorities catch up with them?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/accidentally-released-report-reveals-embarrassing-extent-of-chinese-corruption/story-e6frg6so-1226076938605
QuoteMORE than 10,000 corrupt Chinese officials collectively took $120 billion out of the country in a 15-year spree of embezzlement, bribes and defections, with some of the money ending up in Australia.
The revelations, laid bare in a report by the People's Bank of China that was never intended to be released to the public, shine an embarrassing spotlight on Chinese corruption; a problem seen by some as an Achilles' heel for the world's second-largest economy.
The report appears to have been mistakenly uploaded to an official website after winning a prize for the quality of its research.
....
The research, whose revelations of corruption are breathtaking even by Chinese standards, estimates that between 16,000 and 18,000 officials may have fled the country with monumental hoards of ill-gotten money between the mid-1990s and 2008.
In one paragraph, the report, which had the words "internal data, store carefully" on the front page, cautioned that unchecked corruption was putting communist rule at risk. "It is a direct threat to the cleanpolitics structure of the Communist Party and harms the foundations of its power," it said.