SINGAPORE - They left after the government cracked down on the private sector.
They fled from a harsh “zero COVID” policy.
They sought safe havens for their estate and their families.
They went to Singapore, Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Malta, London, Tokyo, and New York—anywhere but
their home country of
China , where they felt their assets and personal security were increasingly at the mercy of the government. authoritarian.
Yu-Ning Liu, who founded the video game company Karma Games in Beijing, Singapore, on Oct. 3, 2022. (Lauryn Ishak/The New York Times)
In 2022, an extremely difficult year for China, many Chinese businessmen moved
abroad
, temporarily or forever.
They were part of a wave of emigration that led to one of the most popular phrases of the year on the Internet, "
runxue
", which means fleeing from China.
An important, if privileged, piece of China's economic puzzle, these people are pulling out their wealth and businesses when growth is at its lowest point in decades.
Many of them are still scarred by recent years, during which China's leaders persecuted the country's biggest private companies, vilified its most celebrated entrepreneurs, decimated entire industries with arbitrary regulation and refused to budge on COVID policies. -19 when many companies were in trouble.
Although the government's tone and policies have become more pro-business in recent weeks, the business class - which has lost income, fortunes and, above all,
confidence
in the leadership - will not be easily swayed.
JC Huo, whose company helps businesses register in Singapore, said his phone lines were "ringing off the hook".
(Lauryn Ishak/The New York Times)
Now that they have lived free from fear in other countries, they are reluctant to put themselves and their companies back
under the thumb
of the Chinese Communist Party, several of them said during talks in Asia, Europe and the United States;
at least, not until they are guaranteed that the state will have to abide
by the same laws
as citizens.
“When you don't have a say in how a government makes the rules, you don't have to stay there,” said Aginny Wang, co-founder of a crypto banking startup,
Flashwire, who moved from Beijing to Singapore in June after being stuck in Shanghai's COVID lockdown on a business trip.
"There are many other places where things can be done."
While searching for such a location, many members of the Chinese business elite set their sights on
Singapore
.
In a small office in the city-state's central business district, JC Huo was constantly taking calls while serving visitors tea on a bamboo tray.
Huo, founder of Lotusia, a consulting firm that handles business registration and visa applications in Singapore, said his list of Chinese clients had expanded rapidly in the past year.
People from China's
education, gaming, cryptocurrency, and fintech
sectors - all of which have been targeted by the government's crackdown in recent years - had requested his services.
During the Shanghai blockade, his phone lines "wouldn't stop ringing off the hook," he says.
The rich realized that no matter how much money they had, they had to fend for food and supplies under the harsh "COVID zero" restrictions.
Even over the past few weeks, after the Chinese government rolled out the red carpet for the private sector and Hong Kong pledged to attract
mainland
Chinese crypto talent, Huo has been busy fielding applications.
"Entrepreneurs continue to be pessimistic," he says.
"As long as people are worried about their assets, they will register their companies in Singapore and put their money here."
For these people, Singapore works because some 3 million of its citizens, or three-quarters, are ethnic Chinese, and many speak Mandarin.
They also like that it is a business-friendly country, with a global mentality and, above all, that it respects the rule of law.
Westerners may chafe at Singapore's limitations on individual freedom.
But for most Chinese, a government that respects the rule of law and does not arbitrarily change its policies
is enough.
"Singapore will not crack down on a company or industry outside of its legal framework," said Chen Yong, founder of Pionex, a cryptocurrency exchange, who moved here from Beijing in 2021.
"His policies have more continuity."
Chen and others I met in Singapore said they
had no intention
of moving to Hong Kong, despite the city's enthusiastic attempts to attract people like them in recent months.
For decades, Hong Kong played the role of a safe haven for mainland businessmen thanks to its autonomy from China.
That fell apart after Beijing introduced a national security law into the territory in 2020, leading to the arrest of activists, the confiscation of assets, the detention of newspaper editors, the rewriting of school curricula and what many consider the commitment to
judicial independence.
Chen moved to Singapore because cryptocurrency trading, his industry, is banned in China.
It maintains some developers in the country, but most of its operations are carried out outside of it.
.
She said that being in Singapore helped her think more globally.
And he was skeptical that he
could
separate his cryptocurrency policies from those of Beijing.
"When businessmen decide to move to Singapore, it means they have decided to leave China," he said.
Hong Kong is not attractive to those who have made that decision, he added.
Singapore has become a
strong rival
to Hong Kong as a place for China's super-rich to park their wealth.
Four of the 10 richest Singaporeans on the Forbes billionaires list are recent Chinese immigrants.
So many people came last year that a startup founder said he had gotten fat from all the welcome dinners.
The influx of elite Chinese businessmen to Singapore has contributed to the rising cost of living.
The median rent for a 1,000-square-foot condominium was around $3,500 a month at the end of September, more than a fifth more than at the beginning of 2022, according to 99.co, a real estate portal.
The cost of a license to own a vehicle
rose nearly 40%
last year.
Singapore also competes with Hong Kong as a place for mainland Chinese companies to register independent entities for their international operations.
Some entrepreneurs want to build their global brands by identifying themselves as Singaporean companies.
To the outside world, "Hong Kong is part of China, while Singapore is not," said Yu-Ning Liu, founder of Karma Games in Beijing, which develops games played by people around the world.
Liu is moving his operations from Hong Kong to the city-state.
It said it would start using its Singapore entity to launch and market games for international markets.
Singapore has also become something of a buffer zone in the face of escalating geopolitical tensions between China and the United States.
For some, a Singaporean passport is attractive because it maintains
good relations
with both countries.
Governments around the world are increasingly wary of Beijing's influence on Chinese companies.
Many want to know if those companies keep the personal data of their citizens safe and if the investments by Chinese entities have implications for national security.
This scrutiny has led some Chinese businessmen to seek foreign passports or at least permanent resident status in other countries.
A few said they feared their Chinese passports could leave them vulnerable if China invaded Taiwan, triggering the kind of sanctions imposed on Russia and its companies since the war in Ukraine began.
Singaporean businessmen admit that it has its limitations.
It's small and expensive, and the talent pool is shallow.
It's an easy place to enjoy life, but not ideal for starting, say, an ambitious tech company, many say.
Some wealthy and relatively young Chinese who have moved here don't have much to do except drink a lot of Moutai, the Chinese liquor.
Almost everyone would have preferred
to stay in China
had the circumstances been different.
It's a colossal market with great infrastructure, the best supply chain in the world, and a plentiful supply of programmers willing to put in overtime.
Most of them continue to maintain some business operations there.
But they're not going to run back, invest more, and open new businesses just because the government has suckered them up.
"Entrepreneurs no longer dare to take risks," Huo says.
"They have to think twice before doing anything: if they are going to jeopardize their safety."
c.2023 The New York Times Company
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