On February 8, 2014, Deutsche Welle Chinese published an article titled, “Fleeing China – Chinese Millionaires’ Shared Dream.” According to the article, no country in the world is like China. Individuals can quickly and suspiciously accumulate large sums of wealth in its socialist market economy. Rupert Hoogewerf [the publisher of the Hurun Report, a monthly magazine best known for its "China’s Rich List," a ranking of the wealthiest individuals in China] has found a close relationship between political power and wealth in China. Of the 1,000 richest people in China, 84 are members of the National People’s Congress and 69 are members of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. About a quarter of the wealthiest Chinese are registered Chinese Communist Party members, though the Chinese Communist Party claims that it is the vanguard of the proletariat class. Hoogewerf reported last year that 315 of the richest Chinese have personal wealth of over 1 billion U.S. dollars; 64,500 Chinese people have wealth that exceeds U.S. $10 million; more than 1.05 million Chinese people have over $1.2 million in assets.
The Center for China and Globalization (CCG) in Beijing reported in 2013 that 60 percent of Chinese millionaires have applied for or have considered applying for EB-5 immigration visas which the United States provides to wealthy investors. From 2009 to 2011, the Canadian Consulate General in Hong Kong received more than 60,000 applications for immigration to Canada, in the name of foreign investors, from the super-rich Chinese in Mainland China. These applications accounted for 86 percent of the total applications worldwide during that period. Recently, the Canadian government had to freeze the immigration project that meant to attract global investment since the number of applications was too large to handle. Now China’s super-rich are waiting for investment immigration visas to United States, New Zealand, or Australia. In 2011, the United States issued 3,340 permanent residence permits to the Chinese investment immigrants. Each applicant must spend at least $500,000 on creating a company or creating jobs. The article concluded that it is the difficulties China faces that are causing China’s wealthy to emigrate.
Source: Deutsche Welle Chinese, February 8, 2014
http://www.dw.de/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%AF%8C%E8%B1%AA%E5%90%91%E5%A4%96%E9%80%83/a-17419066