Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's Sarah at Bloomberg. We've got reporters in more
Speaker 2: than one hundred bureaus around the world, including twenty four
Speaker 2: in Asia, and that's where we're going today today on
Speaker 2: the Big Take, I'm handing the mic over to my
Speaker 2: colleague Wanha in Hong Kong. Here's one.
Speaker 1: We are on Prata Rut Bumpin' Road in downtown Bangkok,
Speaker 1: where Jeffrey Liu has opened his first hot pot restaurant.
Speaker 1: He recently immigrated to Thailand from China and he's still
Speaker 1: learning how to pronounce the street's name.
Speaker 3: But Batala pompaint, Batta la pomp paint.
Speaker 1: Locals say the street resembles the belly of a dragon,
Speaker 1: and for Chinese that's good func shui for business because
Speaker 1: it draws money in. That's why Liu started his restaurant
Speaker 1: here and with so many other Chinese businesses moving in
Speaker 1: the road is also known by another name, New China Street.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean. Chinatown is old and our
Speaker 4: street is full of new Chinese restaurants and stores. You
Speaker 4: hear Chinese spoken on the street, and it's also close
Speaker 4: to the Chinese embassy.
Speaker 1: Liu is thirty five and ambitious. He moved to Thailand
Speaker 1: late last year, leaving behind his family in chung Qing,
Speaker 1: one of China's biggest cities, and even though he's just arrived,
Speaker 1: he's got big plans. He wants to open three more
Speaker 1: hotpot restaurants this year, and he's planning to move his
Speaker 1: family to Thailand permanently next year.
Speaker 4: I had visited Thailand about eight times before moving here.
Speaker 4: I like Thailand a lot. There isn't much to miss
Speaker 4: about China.
Speaker 1: Liu is hardly alone in saying farewell to China.
Speaker 3: The number of people leaving the country in the past
Speaker 3: two years reached three one hundred and ten thousand for
Speaker 3: each year.
Speaker 1: Lu Lu Chin is Bloomberg's senior editor on Asia Investing.
Speaker 3: And that's sixty percent more than the average for the
Speaker 3: decade through twenty nineteen. What's interesting about this wave is
Speaker 3: we haven't seen this kind of uptick in migration for
Speaker 3: years and for the past two years. Suddenly there's a
Speaker 3: huge uptick compared with the past decade.
Speaker 1: Today on our show, a new wave of Chinese are
Speaker 1: looking for the exit. Why are they leaving and what
Speaker 1: does it say about China's future. This is the big
Speaker 1: take from Bloomberg News. I'm wan ha. Many Chinese who
Speaker 1: are leaving at the moment are part of the middle class,
Speaker 1: a group who've seen their incomes rise along with China's economy.
Speaker 1: In the last two decades.
Speaker 3: China rapid economic development overlapped with an error where the
Speaker 3: Communist Party maintained relatively loose control over private lives, and
Speaker 3: that was a period when the middle class thought they
Speaker 3: were better off than their peers even in the US.
Speaker 3: In some ways, thanks.
Speaker 1: To China's economic miracle, pockets of the population became extremely rich.
Speaker 1: At one point, China was producing billionaires faster than any
Speaker 1: other country, at the rate of two a week in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, but that boom started to fade and the
Speaker 1: mood shifted. One of the most significant pivots was in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, when President Shijinping and the Communist Party
Speaker 1: adopted a policy called Common Prosperity.
Speaker 3: S Cheni.
Speaker 1: That was aimed to close the wealth gap and lift
Speaker 1: the country's poorest.
Speaker 3: And come seizing Ping for a second term, and he
Speaker 3: looks at the country and says, wait a minute, China
Speaker 3: at its core is a communist country and it needs
Speaker 3: to go back to its roots. Even though some people
Speaker 3: get rich, the affluent is still the minority, and that's
Speaker 3: why he brought in the goal of common prosperity to
Speaker 3: restore that balance.
Speaker 1: That Common Prosperity policy has spooked investors and many Chinese.
Speaker 1: The new policy brought crackdowns on multiple industries, technology, property, education,
Speaker 1: and even gaming.
Speaker 4: From today, children in China will only be allowed to
Speaker 4: play online video games for three hours a week.
Speaker 3: Crackdown on d group underscores Beijing's determination to rein in
Speaker 3: big tech.
Speaker 1: And the government launch of sweeping crackdown on the wonder
Speaker 1: billion dollar private education industry.
Speaker 3: Well, the trickle effect is that when China cracks down
Speaker 3: on these sectors, it's not just impacting the private companies
Speaker 3: and the holders behind it. It actually impacts real people.
Speaker 3: Think of all the people who are working up and
Speaker 3: down the supply chain. So the effect is vast reaching.
Speaker 1: The crackdowns stretched for years, and just as China's middle
Speaker 1: class was starting to really feel the pinch from the policies,
Speaker 1: the pandemic struck and it hit a real nerve.
Speaker 3: So one of the people we talked to was a
Speaker 3: person called Jason Swin, who lived a very good life,
Speaker 3: very wealthy in Shanghai before the COVID lockdowns. He already
Speaker 3: sent his daughter and wife to London because his daughter
Speaker 3: was studying there, and for him, he thought that if
Speaker 3: he stayed away from politics, kept a low profile, he
Speaker 3: would still have a very good life in China. And
Speaker 3: then the pandemic hit and it really broke him when
Speaker 3: his pair died just weeks apart, and even though he
Speaker 3: tried everything, he was not allowed to see them for
Speaker 3: one last time. And he told our colleagues that when
Speaker 3: he was holding their ashes in his hand, that was
Speaker 3: the moment when he made up his mind that he
Speaker 3: was going to leave China. And so a few weeks
Speaker 3: after that he sold all his assets and then relocated
Speaker 3: to London.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to today, the China boom is long gone.
Speaker 4: The market has been absolutely hammered. Developers over the years
Speaker 4: have building a way too many houses.
Speaker 1: If you travel around China see half complete buildings everywhere.
Speaker 4: High you look at.
Speaker 3: Both the economic and the social problems that China is facing,
Speaker 3: things are only unfortunately getting worse.
Speaker 1: Some six trillion US dollars in market value has been
Speaker 1: wiped out from Chinese and Hong Kong's since its peak
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one. Concerns about China's economic future has
Speaker 1: people like Jeffrey Lu looking elsewhere for opportunities.
Speaker 4: After the pandemic. You know, the Chinese economy has been
Speaker 4: going down here and every industry is just so competitive,
Speaker 4: So I just wanted to explore and have fun.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break. Chinese immigrants leaving and taking
Speaker 1: their assets with them. What does it mean for an
Speaker 1: already struggling economy. We've heard the reasons why people are
Speaker 1: leaving China. You've got a slowing economy, fears over new
Speaker 1: policies to redistribute wealth, coupled with the trauma of living
Speaker 1: in China during the pandemic. Lulu says, it becomes an
Speaker 1: exodus of capital as well.
Speaker 3: It's one hundred and fifty billion US dollars flowing out
Speaker 3: of China in twenty twenty three alone, based on estimates
Speaker 3: from Natochus also Henley Partners. They had reports saying that
Speaker 3: they estimate China saw the biggest millionaire exodus in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three as well.
Speaker 1: And the number of Chinese immigrating isn't expected to slow
Speaker 1: down anytime soon.
Speaker 3: Looking forward, it's estimated that at least seven hundred thousand
Speaker 3: people will leave the country in the years up to
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Those figures put China number four on a list of
Speaker 1: countries with the largest net immigration now Lulu. If you
Speaker 1: look at that list, which includes third world countries like
Speaker 1: Pakistan and Bangladesh, China really stands out well.
Speaker 3: China is the world's second largest economy, doesn't have any
Speaker 3: warfare or natural disasters that could cause widespread hunger and
Speaker 3: the resurgence of net migration sugg as. The people are
Speaker 3: voting with their feet.
Speaker 1: So we've got seven hundred thousand people looking for the
Speaker 1: exit sign. Where are they going?
Speaker 3: Well? For the seven hundred one thousand people estimate, then
Speaker 3: that's just for US, Australia and Canada, But based on
Speaker 3: the interviews we've done and the research that we looked into,
Speaker 3: they're also showing up in other places that are not typical,
Speaker 3: like Vietnam, Japan, New Zealand.
Speaker 1: And A big draw of these unconventional destinations are the
Speaker 1: inviting policies and business opportunities. Countries like Portugal, Thailand and
Speaker 1: Indonesia are attracting immigrants with so called golden visas. Those
Speaker 1: who can invest big chunks of their money in these
Speaker 1: countries will get full residents or even citizenship in return.
Speaker 1: While this outflow of people and money is bad news
Speaker 1: for China, many of the new countries people are flocking
Speaker 1: to are benefiting from the immigration and investments.
Speaker 3: So in Vietnam, for example, it's provided job opportunities, higher
Speaker 3: wages of senior managers that factories can earn as much
Speaker 3: as sixty five K dollars a month, and that's about
Speaker 3: sixteen times the average local wage.
Speaker 1: But not all the changes are well received. The influx
Speaker 1: of Chinese is also creating tension in some places.
Speaker 3: In Thailand, it's caused resentment due to rising prices of property,
Speaker 3: and there's complaints about Chinese disrespecting local customs. Another often
Speaker 3: heard complaint is that Chinese don't use local suppliers and workers.
Speaker 3: So the money circles within the Chinese business circle, and
Speaker 3: it's a very delicate balance, and whenever you have different
Speaker 3: ethnicities coming into a new community, it's bound to disrupt
Speaker 3: the balance.
Speaker 1: Back in China, while the number of migrants is a
Speaker 1: drop compared to a population of one point four billion people,
Speaker 1: the immigration reflects a larger concern about China's future.
Speaker 3: For the people we interview, they are worried that the
Speaker 3: Chinese middle class life that they once enjoyed is in danger.
Speaker 3: The reason that a lot of middle class Chinese thought
Speaker 3: that they were better off than their US counterparts was
Speaker 3: because they had upward social mobility. Their lives were not stagnant,
Speaker 3: and they always thought that their children would have a
Speaker 3: better life than theirs. Call it the China Dream, if
Speaker 3: you will, and right now people are really questioning whether
Speaker 3: the so called China dream is sustainable.
Speaker 1: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm wanh.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Young Young and Naomi Um.
Speaker 1: The reporters for this story are Patham Sing, Mowana Jung,
Speaker 1: Lee Wing, Zulu Win Gwinn Wing, Lisa Do, David Scanlon,
Speaker 1: and Tao Jung. It was edited by Caitlin Kenney and
Speaker 1: mixed by Young Young and Bronica Rodriguez. It was fact
Speaker 1: checked by Tiffany Soy. Senior producers are Naomi Shaven and
Speaker 1: Gilda de Carley. We get editorial direction from Elizabeth Ponso.
Speaker 1: Nicole Beemster. Brower is our executive producer. Sage Bauman is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of podcast. Thanks for listening to the Big Take.
Speaker 1: We'll be back Monday.