- Sudden and rolling lockdowns as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policies and with the economic outlook in the world’s second largest economy more murky than ever, as many as 10,000 Chinese high-net worth individuals are contemplating leaving China.
- Getting money out of China is not the only challenge facing many well-heeled Chinese, as receiving countries have layered on additional restrictions for would-be immigrants, as a wave of nationalism and closed borders came from the pandemic.
Far from developing Stockholm syndrome (where a hostage victim starts to trust their captor), millions of Chinese richest people are thinking of the unthinkable – taking their blood and treasure with them to leave the land of their birth.
Scarred by repeated, sudden and rolling lockdowns as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policies and with the economic outlook in the world’s second largest economy more murky than ever, as many as 10,000 Chinese high-net worth individuals are contemplating leaving China.
Investment migration consultancy Henley & Partners estimates that 10,000 rich Chinese are looking to pull some US$48 billion from China this year alone, only second to the outflow of people and wealth from Russia.
But the bigger question is whether China’s richest can leave.
Beijing has not ostensibly tightened the screws on relocating, some immigration lawyers claim that moving has become more difficult in recent times and passport processing times have increased dramatically, with the bureaucratic red tape now more onerous.
Many overseas counterparties who had long helped Chinese to sidestep Beijing’s strict capital controls via private swap arrangements have left China because of zero-Covid lockdowns and travel restrictions, making it far more challenging for rich Chinese to spirit large sums of money out of China.
Migration consultants and lawyers in China that Bloomberg spoke with said inquiries about emigration have soared by as much as five times this spring, when Shanghai was in lockdown, compared to a year earlier.
The number of inquiries about moving money out of China has also increased exponentially.
Although spiriting money out of China using existing methods may be more challenging, there are signs that Chinese are attempting to use cryptocurrencies to get money out of China, as they had done in 2015.
Chinese citizens are only allowed to convert US$50,000 worth of yuan into foreign currency each year, but many find ways to get even more out of the country through a variety of means, including a system similar to the Hawala system favored in emerging markets.
A Hawala system is a popular and informal value transfer system based not on the movement of cash, but instead on the performance and honor of a huge network of money brokers.
Getting money out of China is not the only challenge facing many well-heeled Chinese, as receiving countries have layered on additional restrictions for would-be immigrants, as a wave of nationalism and closed borders came from the pandemic.
Singapore, a favored destination for many Chinese looking to leave the country, has recently tightened immigration policies and visas are becoming more difficult to obtain, as has become the case in many other destinations favored by the Chinese.
