Why Chinese are spending US$24 billion to buy the right to live overseas
US EB-5 residence-for-investment visas the first choice for the wealthy concerned about education, pollution, stressed lifestyles and insecurity at home, but risks of fraud dog the programme
When the sister of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner promoted investment in her family’s new skyscraper from a Beijing hotel ballroom stage earlier this month, she was also pitching a controversial American visa programme that has proved to be irresistible to tens of thousands of Chinese.
More than 100,000 Chinese have poured at least US$24 billion in the last decade into “golden visa” programmes across the world that offer residence in exchange for investment. Nowhere is Chinese demand greater than for visas for the United States, which has earned at least US$7.7 billion and issued more than 40,000 visas to Chinese investors and their families in the past decade.
China’s “golden visa” investors are part of a wave characterised not by poverty, persecution or war, but by people with steady jobs and homes who are pursuing happiness that has eluded them in their homeland.
They are a reflection of how China’s rise has catapulted tens of millions of families into the middle class, and at the same time shows how such people are increasingly becoming restless as cities remain choked by smog, home prices multiply and schools impose ever-greater pressure on children. They also feel insecure about being able to protect their property and savings.
They are people like Jenny Liu, a doctoral student in the coastal city of Nanjing, who sold her apartment two years ago and moved in with her parents. She used the money from the sale to invest US$500,000 in a hotel project in the United States. If the project creates enough jobs in two years, she will get a prized green card and a pathway for a less stressful education for her 9-year-old son.