As the political and economic environment in China has deteriorated in recent years, a large number of Chinese billionaires have emigrated to other countries. Financial security has become the top motivation for China’s wealthy to flee the country with their assets.
On Feb. 29, the Financial Times reported that Chinese entrepreneur and tech investor Neil Shen acquired permanent residency in Singapore before the pandemic and later opened an office in the country for his $56 billion venture capital firm.
At the age of 56, Mr. Shen gained fame for his early investments in companies like Alibaba and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. He has also been a major investor in hundreds of digital technology companies in China, covering almost all fields of artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, and the Internet of Things.
Mr. Shen was also the billionaire founder of Sequoia China. Last year, it was revealed that Sequoia indirectly influenced Washington’s policy toward China by donating to various American universities. Therefore, in June last year, Sequoia China was split from its U.S.-based parent company Sequoia Capital and renamed HongShan.
In February, HongShan and two companies it has invested in, Moonshot AI and ByteDance, were named in a report to the U.S. Congress for aiding and supporting the Chinese regimes’ military actions and oppression against minority ethnic groups in Xinjiang.
Fleeing Wealth
Under the guise of “common prosperity,” the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been suppressing private enterprises and technology companies, imposing national security controls, worsening relations with major Western trading partners, and implementing harsh lockdowns during the pandemic. This has led to an increasing number of Chinese billionaires and high-net-worth individuals emigrating abroad in recent years.
In the past decade, China ranked first in terms of the net outflow of millionaires. Australia, the United States, the UK, Canada, and Singapore are the top choices.
According to previous statistics from the UK-based investment migration consultancy Henley & Partners, in 2022, more than 10,800 millionaires chose to leave China, with each taking away an average of $6.6 million in wealth while emigrating overseas. In other words, in 2022, Chinese billionaires took away approximately $71.2 billion in wealth from China.
In 2023, the number of Chinese millionaires emigrating reached 13,500, an increase of 25 percent from 2022. Between 2023 and 2025, the total number of Chinese emigrants may exceed 700,000, according to an August 2023 report by Juwai IQI, an International real estate firm. Australia is the top destination for China’s ultra-wealthy, followed by the United Arab Emirates, with Singapore ranking third.
Andrew Amoils, head of research at the global wealth intelligence firm New World Wealth, pointed out in a report that China’s overall wealth growth has been slowing down, which means that recent capital outflows may be more disruptive than in the past.
According to a CNBC report last year, since the CCP proposed the idea of “common prosperity,” Chinese billionaires have accelerated the pace of moving funds to better locations, one of which is setting up family offices to transfer assets, with many choosing Singapore.
According to data from the analytics company Amicus, as of August 2023, among the wealthy who have set up family offices in Singapore from over 60 regions worldwide, wealthy Chinese account for the largest number, with 699 people, or 34 percent.
Zhou Daochuan, the head of research and strategy director of Yunfeng Financial, held a joint family office opening ceremony in Singapore in February. He told the Chinese media that the initial capital for their family office is approximately $100 million.
Trend of Capital Outflow From China and Hong Kong
As the CCP’s regressive policies worsened the economic and political environment in China and Hong Kong, the pace of Chinese emigration has shown no signs of pause. This could lead to further capital outflow from China and Hong Kong.The Hurun Report released in 2023 said there were 969 Chinese billionaires worldwide, and about 18 percent reside outside China.
According to the Global Wealth Report for 2023, there were over 32,900 individuals in China with assets exceeding $100 million in 2023, second only to the United States.
Although China is estimated to have 823,800 millionaires, the trend of capital outflow will cause tens of millions of dollars in wealth to disappear from China, further worsening the economic slowdown in China.
In Hong Kong, it was estimated that around 1,000 millionaires emigrated last year, severely affecting the Hong Kong government’s effort to attract funds and turn Hong Kong into a hub for family offices.
In the past, Hong Kong has been rated as the freest economy in the world. Many Chinese billionaires became new immigrants to Hong Kong. However, with the demise of the “one country, two systems” form of governance the CCP promised before taking over Hong Kong, many old and new Hong Kong billionaires have started to withdraw their funds from Hong Kong.
Lew Mon-hung, a well-known Hong Kong businessman and former member of China’s rubber-stamp congress, recently told The Epoch Times that the reason for the change in billionaires’ mentality is that the CCP has essentially reversed its policy of “reform and opening-up.” This has impacted Hong Kong, and its “one country, two systems.” In reality, it is “one country, one system,” bringing in the rule of man instead of the rule of law to Hong Kong.
“In mainland [China], there are constantly despicable and rogue practices harming private entrepreneurs, such as private shares being confiscated, defaulting on project payments without consequences, and debtors being criminally detained,” he said. “This makes Hong Kong’s billionaires worry that it will spread to Hong Kong. They feel lost and worried. So they reconsider their own families’ security and stability, leading to the idea of emigration.”
