Link to article: CNN
"Culture is not the main reason why most Chinese people leave. This is a romantic view. Most people leave China because of practical reasons like education, food and wealth security, and air quality."
This was the view of Li Chen, who moved to Hong Kong a few years ago and is planning to go to Canada in the near future.
China is loosing some its most wealthiest, brightest citizens. Even some Communist officials have packed their bags. This is a serious problem for China. Last year, China was labeled "world's worst brain drain". Of the rich Chinese surveyed this year in the 2014 China-based Hurun Report, 64% said they were emigrating, or planning to this year. This is 4% more than last year's "worst" brain drain.
China needs to find a solution to their predicament but in order to do this, they just might have to conquer an array of tough problems.
One of the most difficult altercation that China must solve is pollution. Health is wealth they say. Smog has reached all time hazardous levels in China and has lingered on for quite some time. People with the money to leave the country are debating their options seriously. With the way big-time corporations are run now and the amount of pollution that exists in China today, China's war on pollution isn't going to end anytime soon. It'll be hard to convince wealthy, educated Chinese people to stay in a country where every time you take a breath, it kills you bit by bit.
Other than wealth preservation, "people also go (abroad) for
opportunities, quality of life, and where their skills are better valued,"
said David Zweig, a professor and specialist in China's human resources at the
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. This is another difficult problem for China and is hard to mediate.
The combination of these problems make the brain drain a near impossible obstacle to overcome if China doesn't fix a few of their major emigration factors. This should be one of China's main focuses since their future greatly depends on the contributed success of the younger generation.
Brain drains do take their toll, but considering China's world class economy, I would think that while many of its wealthy are moving out of country, they are keeping their investments within the country still for more growth. So I think China's got the money to keep going, its just that the people who own that money are directing it from another land.
ReplyDeleteI think jiffy is right. While people may be moving, there aren't huge exoduses of people from China. They should, however, continue to try and improve the living environment in their country as it grows more and more.
ReplyDelete