Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s decision to dismantle COVID-19 travel restrictions is accelerating an exodus by wealthy residents, who could fuel billions in capital outflows as they plow cash into property and assets abroad.
Since the end of "zero-COVID" in December, many rich Chinese have begun traveling overseas to check out real estate or firm up plans to emigrate, immigration consultants said in interviews. That’s threatening a brain drain in the world’s second-largest economy as well as outflows that could pressure its financial markets.
Over the past two years, Xi’s crackdown on industries like technology, real estate and education, and his push for "common prosperity,” have spooked the rich, long accustomed to growing wealthier as long as they didn’t question the supremacy of the Communist Party. Advisers to the wealthy say those concerns have worsened since October when Xi cemented his political control at a twice-a-decade party congress.