New Take on Chinese Emigration

An average of about 400,000 Chinese have emigrated to other countries each year over the past two decades, according to data from the UN Population Division. Today's New York Times offers up a new set of reasons for this phenomenon--middle class uncertainty about the future of China.

As China’s Communist Party prepares a momentous leadership change in early November, it is losing skilled professionals like Ms. Chen in record numbers. In 2010, the last year for which complete statistics are available, 508,000 Chinese left for the 34 developed countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That is a 45 percent increase over 2000.

Few emigrants from China cite politics, but it underlies many of their concerns. They talk about a development-at-all-costs strategy that has ruined the environment, as well as a deteriorating social and moral fabric that makes China feel like a chillier place than when they were growing up. Over all, there is a sense that despite all the gains in recent decades, China’s political and social trajectory is still highly uncertain.

“People who are middle class in China don’t feel secure for their future and especially for their children’s future,” said Cao Cong, an associate professor at the University of Nottingham who has studied Chinese migration. “They don’t think the political situation is stable.”

I have noted before the widespread concern that China might grow old before it grows rich, and this trend of middle class emigration, if it continues, will likely speed up that process.