Comment: Why are they leaving China?

>Comment: Why are they leaving China? Not long ago, Mark Kitto, a British man who has lived in China for a long time, married a Chinese wife, has two children, and has his own successful business in China...

Not long ago, Mark Kitto, a British man who has lived in China for a long time, married a Chinese wife, has two children, and has his own successful business in China, published an article in English media titled "You can never become Chinese. Why should I leave the China I love?" In the article, this China expert who graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London said that after studying, working and living in China for more than ten years, China has changed. Although material life has greatly improved, money corruption and a series of other problems made him finally decide to take his family to leave China and return to the UK. There is more than one foreigner like him who loves China but wants to leave.

Not only foreigners who "can never become Chinese" are beginning to consider leaving China, but the Chinese themselves are also beginning to immigrate overseas. This phenomenon has attracted more and more people's attention. According to Hurun's 2011 survey of multi-millionaires in 18 cities in China, 14% of the rich have immigrated or are in the process of applying, and 46% are considering immigrating. We have no way of knowing whether this data is accurate, but at least it illustrates a trend, a phenomenon that cannot be ignored. Indeed, in the United States, we often encounter Chinese people who either completely "run away" and leave China, or they first "hedging their bets" just in case.

After more than thirty years of reform and rapid economic development, Chinese society has undergone tremendous changes. Urbanization and modernization have led to continuous growth in China's economic aggregate and per capita level. In addition to becoming the world's second largest economy, China's per capita GDP reached US$5,400 last year (US$8,000 in terms of average purchasing power), ranking around 90th among more than 180 countries. It is right in the middle. At least it cannot be considered a poor country.

However, at the same time, people's feelings of lack of security and predictability have deepened. It should be said that in the first thirty years of reform and opening up, the CCP reached a contract with society to build China into a moderately prosperous country and achieve modernization while maintaining stability. This contract guaranteed the legitimacy and stable development of the regime for thirty years. But the social contract is not infinitely valid. As early as the early 1960s, American scholar Seymour Martin Lipset put forward the famous "economic development (democracy) theory" of "economic development-educational improvement-middle class-democratic demands". Influenced by this theory, scholars have continued to deeply explore the intrinsic mechanism of the relationship between economic development and democratization based on several waves of democracy. The most famous of them is Samuel Huntington. He pointed out that historical experience shows that the "transition zone" where democratization is most likely to occur is between US$3,000 (the value in the early 1990s) and US$10,000 per capita. During this period, the old system was no longer able to meet the various demands of new social interest groups, and the existing social contract began to expire. China has now entered this "change zone." There are many signs that China is on this path.

Thirty years of economic reform and development have benefited many people, and the overall national living standards have greatly improved compared to thirty years ago. At the same time, in recent years, interest differentiation and class differentiation have begun to appear. On the one hand, there is inequality between rich and poor, and on the other hand, the urban middle class is constantly growing. The original state-led modern development model and institutional mechanisms are increasingly being questioned and even challenged by various classes and interest groups. Each class has its own dissatisfaction. They all believe that the government does not take enough care of them, and their dissatisfaction is increasing. This is not only the grassroots disadvantaged groups and the urban middle class, but even vested interest groups and the wealthy are increasingly less confident in the existing social contract. For the former, the injustice before them is the biggest dissatisfaction, and the way to express dissatisfaction is through petitions and protests by individuals and groups. For the latter, the biggest worry is the uncertainty of the future, and one way to express lack of confidence is to vote with their feet and "run away."

When you are a penniless pauper, you will not worry too much about the future, because the future can only get better and better. When you are a rich man with a fortune, you will worry about the safety of your wealth and be uncertain about the future direction. The biggest manifestation of a society entering the "change zone" is uncertainty. At this time, it is not surprising that many people want to leave China.

The uncertainty also lies in the prevalence of unspoken rules in Chinese society, while formal rules are often distorted. The administration of government departments is very arbitrary. After more than thirty years of reform, many rounds of administrative reforms have been carried out, but people still have no confidence and distrust in the government. Mark Kitto lives in seclusion in Moganshan, runs cafes and family hotels, and also publishes best-selling magazines. He said he was always on tenterhooks when renewing his business license every three years, wondering when the local government would refuse to reissue the license. For businessmen, this kind of expensive, time-consuming, laborious and even unstable investment and operating environment is a headache for them. Not long ago, it was reported that a local government in Northeast China was using public security, taxation, health and other regulatory departments to put pressure on small operators because it failed to complete its fiscal and taxation tasks, causing them to close their doors and go on strike. Regardless of whether this is a rumor or not, it at least reflects the plight of many small and medium-sized operators. In fact, the hidden rules of favoring favor, corruption, and immorality are not only faced by businessmen every day, but also faced by everyone living in China.

What makes people dissatisfied and even "run away" is the social environment under the rapid economic development. After thirty years of development, the material living standards of Chinese people have greatly improved. But at the same time, a consequence is "materialism" that focuses on money. This is a materialistic society where rapid development comes at the expense of environmental damage and low quality. Rich in material things, poor in spiritual life, and lacking in moral values ​​and values.

Kitto, a foreigner who has been in China for a long time, said that he misses China in the mid-1980s. At that time, when he first came to China, he felt that the country was full of optimism and hope for the future. Indeed, although China was backward and poor in the early days of reform, people were not completely captured by material desires, and morals and values ​​were not as pale and weak as they are today. On the other hand, this is also a common result in the process of modernization: people will one day change from incremental demands for living standards to higher quality demands. In a rapidly changing modern society, the quality of spiritual life and moral values ​​will always go through a process of starting from scratch, with the old weakening and the new forming. Today's China is still in a period of missing values.

When investigating why Chinese people want to immigrate overseas, children’s education is often mentioned. Kitto also mentioned that this was the reason why he considered leaving China and returning to the UK. This has a lot to do with China's education system. In China, opportunities for education are still insufficient or even poor, and many children cannot receive education due to economic and institutional reasons. The quality of schools and education methods also make many parents worried about their children's educational prospects. Kitto criticized China's primary and secondary education as not about learning knowledge, but about learning how to take exams. Although this is a bit exaggerated, it hits the point. Although higher education has expanded enrollment for more than ten years, candidates still have to prepare for the college entrance examination every year in order to enter university. The quality of university teaching has not increased as much as the number of students. This is also an important reason why many people would rather spend a lot of money to send their children abroad, or even immigrate overseas themselves, in order to educate their children.

In addition, the by-products of modernization related to the quality of life, such as environmental pollution, food quality, traffic congestion, etc., have also made many Chinese and foreigners living in China feel disconnected.

The contemporary world is an increasingly integrated global village. Chinese people have immigrated overseas for more than a hundred years, and foreigners have not settled in China since the reform and opening up. There is nothing strange about moving in and out. However, the current fact that people are leaving China reflects the important background that Chinese society is undergoing changes, which cannot be underestimated.

The author Lu Xiaobo is a political science professor and former director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at Columbia University.