They attended the best Chinese and Western universities. They led middle-class lives in Beijing, Shanghai or Shenzhen and worked for companies at the heart of the technological rivalry between China and the United States.
Today, they live and work in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and almost every developed country.
Chinese people – whether young people or entrepreneurs – are voting with their feet to escape political oppression, bleak economic prospects and often grueling work cultures. Increasingly, the exodus has included tech professionals and other educated, middle-class Chinese.
“I left China because I didn’t like the social and political environment,” said Chen Liangshi, 36, who worked on artificial intelligence projects at Baidu and Alibaba, two of the biggest companies Chinese technology companies, before leaving the country in early 2020. He made the decision after China abolished presidential term limits in 2018, a move that allowed its top leader, Xi Jinping , to remain in power indefinitely.
He now works for Meta in London.
I interviewed 14 Chinese professionals, including Mr. Chen, and exchanged messages with dozens more, about why they uprooted themselves and how they started their lives anew. stranger. Most of them worked in China’s tech industry, which is surprising because salaries there are high.
But what surprised me the most was that most of them had moved to countries other than the United States.
In the 1980s and 1990s, when China was poor, its best people sought to study and work – and stay – in the West. Net emigration reached its peak in 1992, with more than 870,000 people leaving the country, according to the United Nations. That figure fell to about 125,000 in 2012, as China rose from poverty to become a tech powerhouse and the world’s second-largest economy.
The Chinese government has worked to retain them, putting in place incentives to attract scientists and other qualified people. In 2016, more than 80% of Chinese who studied abroad returned home, according to the Ministry of Education, compared with about a quarter 20 years earlier.
The trend has reversed. In 2022, despite passport and travel restrictions, more than 310,000 Chinese in total have emigrated, according to UN data. With three months to go until the end of 2023, the number of emigrants has reached the same level as last year.
Many of the people I interviewed said, like Mr. Chen, that they began considering leaving the country after China changed its constitution to allow Mr. Xi to rule for life.
Most of the people I interviewed asked me to use only their last names for fear of reprisals from the government.
One of them, Mr. Fu, was working as an engineer at a state-owned defense technology company in southwest China when he decided to leave. He found that after the constitutional amendment, he and his colleagues spent more time attending policy study sessions than working, forcing everyone to work overtime.
As Mr. Xi increasingly governs through fear and propaganda, the social and political atmosphere has become tense and stifling. Mr Fu said he became estranged from his parents after arguing over the need for tough pandemic restrictions, which he opposed. He barely spoke to anyone and lived in a political closet. Late last year, he resigned and applied for a Canadian work visa. Today he and his wife are on their way to Calgary, Alberta.
Most emigrants I spoke to explained why they did not choose the United States by citing the complexity and unpredictability of the visa and permanent resident status application process.
The number of student visas granted by the United States to Chinese nationals, long a starting point for promising future emigrants, began to decline in 2016 as relations between the two countries deteriorated. In the first six months of 2023, the UK granted more than 100,000 study visas to Chinese nationals, while the US granted around 65,000 F1 student visas.
Mr. Fu said he had not considered the United States because he studied at a university on Washington’s sanctions list and worked at a defense company — both of which could prevent it from passing the US government security screening process. However, he declared that he ultimately wanted to work in this country, which he idolizes.
When Zhang decided to emigrate in July 2022, she made a list: Canada, New Zealand, Germany and the Nordic countries. The United States was rejected because she knew it would be extremely difficult for her to obtain a work visa there.
Ms. Zhang, 27, a computer programmer, felt that Silicon Valley’s hustle culture was too similar to China’s grueling work environment. After spending five years working long hours at a top tech company in Shenzhen, she had enough. She also sought a country where women were treated more fairly. This year, she moved to Norway. After paying taxes for three years and passing the language test, she will obtain permanent residency.
Zhang said she didn’t mind earning about $20,000 less than in Shenzhen and paying more taxes and living expenses. She can end her day at 4 p.m. and enjoy life outside of work. She doesn’t worry about being considered too old to work when she turns 35, a form of discrimination many Chinese experience. She doesn’t live in constant fear that the government will implement a policy like “zero COVID” that will turn her life upside down.