The rich are not the mainstream of Chinese immigrants, while middle-class immigrants seek stability

The rich are not the mainstream of Chinese immigrants, and middle-class immigrants seek stability. Rich immigrants are not so numerous and are not favored. It is true that more than 70% of the investment immigration applications in the United States and Canada in recent years...

In recent years, more than 70% of the investment immigration applications in the United States and Canada came from China.

According to the "2011 China Private Wealth Management White Paper" released by the Bank of China and Hurun Research Institute, the United States and Canada are the most popular immigration destinations for Chinese people with wealth exceeding 10 million, with 40% choosing to immigrate to the United States and 37% choosing to immigrate to Canada. In 2009, Canada's target number of global investment immigrants was 2,055, of which 1,000 were immigrants from China. At the same time, more than 70% of the investment immigrants processed by the Quebec Immigration Bureau were applicants from mainland China. According to recent relevant statistics, among all investment immigration projects in the United States, approximately 75% are from China, which is twice as many investors as all other countries in the world combined.

However, in 2010, the proportion of investment immigrants among Chinese immigrants to the United States was less than 1%, and all investment immigrants were less than 1% of the total number of immigrants?

The immigration policy of the U.S. federal government stipulates that as long as investors invest 500,000 to 1 million in project funds in the United States, they can obtain a temporary green card and a formal green card after two years. If an investment immigrant applicant obtains a conditional green card in the United States and the conditions on the green card are lifted after 2 years, he or she will successfully obtain a formal green card. In the past seven years, the US Citizenship and Immigration Service has received a total of 4,635 conditional green card applications for investment immigrants from China, and issued a total of 2,770 conditional green card approval letters for investment immigrants to Chinese applicants. In 2010, investment immigrants from China accounted for 41% of all investment immigration visas issued by the Immigration Bureau throughout the year, a total of 772 people. In 2011, a total of 2,969 Chinese citizens applied for investment immigration visas, of which 934 were approved. Data compiled by the Office of Immigration Statistics of the Department of Homeland Security in 2010 show that in 2010, a total of 70,863 Chinese immigrants received "green cards" in the United States. According to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2010, there were 1,808,066 registered legal Chinese immigrants living in the United States. In 2010, investment immigrants accounted for less than 1% of Chinese immigrants to the United States. So far, China’s investment immigration to the United States is less than one thousandth of all legal immigrants.

In June this year, Canada suspended investment immigration due to a backlog of tens of thousands of applications and dissatisfaction of 70% of its citizens

On June 29, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced that Canada would suspend the acceptance of federal skilled immigration and investment immigration applications starting from July 1, 2012. Subsequently, the Quebec Immigration Department followed up by freezing investment and corporate immigration applications. The Canadian Department of Immigration and Immigration is currently revising the selection criteria for federal skilled immigrants and will begin accepting immigration applications again after the new criteria are introduced, which is expected to be early next year. The reopening time for investment immigration has not yet been determined.

In the past thirty years, the number of immigrants to Canada has increased year by year, from 100,000 per year in 1986 to approximately 250,000 per year currently. In June of this year, a Canadian public opinion survey commissioned by the market research agency Ipsos Reid showed that about 3/4 of the people did not want the federal government to increase the annual immigration quota. This poll interviewed a total of 1,101 citizens and found that 72% of the respondents opposed increasing immigration quotas and 28% were in favor.

For a long time, Canadian immigrants have been in a serious "oversupply" state, with a mountain of backlogs, low review efficiency, long waiting times, and a mismatch between supply and demand in the labor market. There is currently a serious backlog of investment immigration applications. Even if new applications are no longer accepted, it will take 4 to 5 years to complete the review. Among them, the Chinese are the absolute main force. Regarding the indefinite suspension of investment immigration, Kenney said that the backlog of federal investment immigration cases is about 25,000, allowing foreigners to buy status with money, which will not be beneficial to Canada's economy in the long run. In recent years, the ratio of the number of skilled immigrants and investment immigrants that China has applied for from various countries is 20:1, with 70% of immigrants to Australia and 90% of immigrants to Canada being skilled immigrants.

According to data provided by Qi Lixin, president of the Beijing Private Exit Agency Association, in an interview with the media, in the past 10 years, the number of Chinese people applying for skilled immigrants from various countries compared with investment immigrants was about 20:1. On July 19, 2012, the Australian Department of Immigration released immigration statistics for 2011-2012. The total number of immigrant visas approved was 184,998, of which 125,755 were in the technical category, accounting for nearly 70%. A 2001 macro trend study conducted by the Canadian government's immigration department on domestic immigration data for the last two decades of the last century showed that among the 106,400 immigrants from mainland China, 97,005 were skilled talent immigrants, accounting for 91.2%; 1,063 were self-employed immigrants, and 7,765 were business owner and investment immigrants, which added up to less than 9%.

The immigrant labor force from mainland China in the New York area ranks fourth, mainly engaged in catering and administrative management industries

According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, a non-partisan and free research organization in the United States Institute) released a research report on October 21, 2010. Between 2005 and 2007, the immigrant labor force from mainland China ranked fourth in the Greater New York area in terms of immigrant population, with approximately 156,204 people, accounting for 5% of the total foreign-born immigrant population in the area. In the New York area, 15% of mainland-born Chinese immigrants work in the catering industry, 12% work in professional positions such as administrative management, 11% work in positions such as office assistants, 9% work in professional positions such as doctors, engineers, and lawyers, 9% work in sales industry positions such as cashiers, and 8% work in machine operation positions.

More than half of Chinese immigrants in the United States are adults employed in private enterprises, with IT, management, and engineering employees ranking among the top three

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, among immigrants in the United States who were born in China, 4% of males over the age of 16 are employed in private enterprises. There are 98,416 people, of which 474,603 are women, accounting for more than half of the total. The three major industries with the largest number of employees are: financial management, with 14.4% men and 17.2% women; information technology, 11.1% men and 17.2% women; other technology and engineering, 13.7% men and 8.1% women.

In July this year, the opposition party in the U.S. Senate gave up on blocking the equalization bill for skilled immigrants

At the end of last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill by a vote of 389 to 15 to cancel the current high-tech immigration bill. The country-specific quota limit for skilled talent occupation immigration means that the waiting time for Chinese people who study in the United States to obtain a master's degree or above and find a job locally will be greatly shortened to apply for a green card. Chinese people do not have to be like Icelanders who only have a quota of 9,800 skilled immigrants every year. However, the bill has not advanced in the Senate due to resistance from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Now this bill has made new progress in the Senate. Senator Grassley, the Republican heavyweight on the Senate Judiciary Committee, agreed to give up the procedural delay on this bill on July 16 this year, which means that this "High-Skilled Immigrant Fairness Act" bill may soon be put to a vote in the Senate. This bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives at the end of last year. Now powerful figures in the Senate have lifted the blockade on this bill, which means that the case is very likely to be passed by both houses of Congress.

Middle-class immigrants mainly seek stability, while skilled immigrants give up the glamorous life at home for a stable life.

The famous economist Watson’s view is: Have all the rich immigrated? It is true that most celebrities have immigrated, but we still can't avoid their familiar faces all day long; many older entrepreneurs have also immigrated, but they are still working hard in China. Rich people apply for immigration just like poor people apply for insurance for themselves. They have not really left the land where they can make money. After all, these people only account for a minority in the population, so investment immigration may seem huge, but in fact the scale is average, but middle-class immigrants are the real immigrants.

Having received higher education, having more than five years of work experience in the country, being well-educated, having a decent status, and earning a considerable income are the common characteristics of Chinese skilled immigrants. Compared with study-abroad immigrants who go abroad to study in their early twenties and stay to work after graduation, they are already in their 30s and 40s when they immigrate, and their options and competitiveness are smaller. Although the life of a large number of skilled immigrants abroad is stable, it is far less glamorous than at home. In a distant foreign country, most of them need to shed their aura of "successful people" at home and return to ordinary lives. But they focus more on a stable future.

For the ordinary Chinese middle class, if life can make people feel the dignity, security and relative certainty they deserve, even if their hometown is still not as good as Liangyuan, they will not easily regard a foreign land as their hometown. But the current reality is that with the rapid development of society and economy, the accompanying new and old social diseases have not been dealt with in a timely manner, covering almost all social life in various aspects such as food, clothing, housing and transportation. Life has gradually lost its basic sense of stability and security. Faced with this current situation, we are neither able to change nor willing to be afraid. Foreign high-quality education, healthy environment, safe food, and standardized laws are all very attractive to immigrants. Therefore, immigration has become an important option for those with ability.

Skilled immigrants have never felt that their dignity has been damaged after going to Canada

In December 2011, Southern Weekend interviewed Ma Shu, a skilled immigrant who had immigrated to Canada for ten years, and mentioned that in 2005, a Chinese doctor jumped from a bridge and died after being fired by his company. Ma Shu feels that this is all caused by China’s education. “The awareness of superiority and inferiority is too deep” and “the value of equality has penetrated into the bones of Westerners.” In Ma Shu’s impression, most of the people who yell at waiters in restaurants are Chinese. “Canadians are very surprised. , Why do you do this?” Ma Shu still keeps a newspaper that he came to Canada in early 2001. It published that the then Canadian Governor-General spent an extra 15,000 Canadian dollars (about 100,000 yuan) to renovate his office. The media exposed it and apologized to no avail, so he had to take the blame and resign.

Although their status is not as good as before in China, Ma Shu and his friends who are also skilled immigrants have never felt that their dignity has been compromised. The local housing prices are reasonable. When the real estate market was inflated by hot money, Toronto residents once protested; a good friend wanted to go back to university at the age of 40 because his Canadian employer did not accept his original diploma from China. But he can enjoy education subsidies from the Canadian government. The monthly subsidy of 2,000 Canadian dollars is enough to cover tuition and living expenses for a family of three.