35 ms·

Leaving China

461 points by jseliger 4y ago

xiaolingxiao 4y ago
Can other expats who has since left, or have decided to stay, share their experience as well?
- baybal2 4y ago
  I've been working in, and out of South China since 2009, and have called it quit 2019, when it became clear the industry was done for, and CoVID mess only reinforced my decision. I never held any fraternal feelings with the country, even though I am ethnic Chinese, nor I had any delusions about making long term plans there. In my years there, I kept seeing rose coloured glasses wearing American expats. I met Tim Cook during his first travels to China as CEO at some random event in Shenzhen, only to see him regurgitate the official drivel. Since around 2016, I kept seeing more and more Western high flyers coming to official events there, seemingly trying to network with locals, and only to see them freak out at that. My regular conversation with them: - it's a damn communist regime, do your business and get out - no, it's different! there is no more communisms in China! no, it's state capitalism! no, things will change! no, I have a special plan from EY China expert! Most of them lived there for 2-3 years, and got out just as I told when the truth hit them. In the end, I outlived all of them there. China is a communist regime, though a very well doing for some years.
  - chasil 4y ago
    You have a decisive level of bravery for your willingness to say this. I applaud you for your clarity on the country of your ancestors. It is a shame.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      I see comment chains touching on this topic in nearly every post even tangentially related to China, and it's rarely ever that the main issue is mentioned. So I'll write this for the benefit of any passing reader with similar thoughts. In a country of 1.x billions, it shouldn't be surprising that there would be at least a few tens of millions of hardcore, actual socialists, who genuinely believe in some distant future communist utopia. Even if the entire rest of the population were the most perfect paragons of virtue imaginable, it's still likely going to be the hardcore folks willing to fight to the death en bloc that end up with the actual power. That's just how the cookie crumbles in every country. Whether it's ultra-Maoists in China, or ultra-Hindus in India, or ultra-muslims in Islamic countries, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, etc.. The real question is whether or not the bulk of the hardcore group can be enticed with enough potential rewards to moderate their views. Wealth works if there's a lot to go around, like in the U.S., EU, etc., but otherwise the hardcore group needs to be paid in some form of power, geopolitical, cultural, etc.
      - woooooo 4y ago
        Is this based on political experience there? My view from the outside was that it's really similar to climbing the ladder in a corporation, mouth all the platitudes but only suckers believe them.
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        > My view from the outside was that it's really similar to climbing the ladder in a corporation, mouth all the platitudes but only suckers believe them. Humans are not perfect deceivers, even the average Joe can usually tell if someone's fishy within a 10 minute face-to-face conversation. There do exist really expert and cunning deceivers, but the folks higher up in the hierarchy will also commensurately be better equipped to see through it. So for a large enough hierarchy, the practical impossibility of duping so many means that only genuine believers end up near the top. You don't even need to go Beijing to see this dynamic play out, there's a company in Cupertino where many folks allege this is the case (though to be fair some allege the non-believers are also moving up the ladder).
  - baybal2 4y ago
    The fallacy of "reformed communism" hopers is that with development came not their hoped reform, but even stronger regime, and harder life. Way more, many times more rich Chinese are fleeing China now, when it reached some level of wealth, and industrialisation, than back 10-15 years ago, when China was incomparably poorer, and everyday life was incomparably harder. All of that was easily predictable. You have a terrible regime, you give it money, and power. It only becomes stronger, and more terrible, not less. Communism is irreformable.
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    Had me fooled I thought you were a Pakistani for quite a while
    - lmz 4y ago
      Chinese-Russian it seems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33922218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33922218
- hayst4ck 4y ago
  I am not an expat, but I was considering spending several months in China. After Hong Kong, there was a strong message of "Americans caused this," likewise after covid there was a strong message of "this didn't start in China, this actually started in America." It wasn't just a message of "America is our enemy," but looking at how the People in Hong Kong were robbed of due process from an impartial justice system it was clear that if there was a problem we would also not get due process. The Canadians arrested without due process in response to Huawei leaders being arrested was another story that says "China might do bad things to you in response to things you don't have control over." As an American I felt it was made clear that we were the enemy and we would not get due process. I was planning to spend several months in China, but chose not to because of Hong Kong. My choice was re-inforced because of the covid response. I am open to the idea that international media was being unfair to China, but I had experiences which made me realize this was not the case. - I met a person who just got out of china. She was an early 20s English teacher who didn't know why she was put in prison, but spent a couple weeks in Chinese prison until the US state department said 'give her back, now.' She figured she failed some kind of political question she was asked or made a statement about Taiwan she shouldn't have. She said she probably would still be there if her boyfriend hadn't called the US state department saying he hasn't heard from her and didn't know what happened. - Another woman I met on a plane said that the people who ran the school she taught at threatened to revoke her visa trapping her in China. She said she was leaving for "vacation" but was not going to go back. She was also visibly shaken. - A Hong Kong person I met broke down the way China was destroying Hong Kong culture and acting like an imperial ruler. - Hong Kong went from feeling like a lively place to feeling like a dominated place. The energy left the city. - Seeing the video of Triads in the train station made it clear that the Chinese government was in bed with organized crime. Seeing triads be the foot soldiers of the CPC was something I had never seen before. It made it clear that if China wanted to achieve a goal, it would use any method regardless of how right or wrong it is. It was just one more element of "our legal system is pretext, we will do what we want." - I spent some time in China with a Chinese woman and she was constantly "correcting" me about any implication that Hong Kong or Taiwan was a country. It made me realize that I can't just hide my beliefs, they will manifest in my language, and that will put me at risk.
  - 4y ago
- yibg 4y ago
  I spent 3 years in China before Covid. Happened to be out of the country during initial lockdown and that was that. My experiences are pre Covid so things may be different now, I don’t know. Pros: - very vibrant, never bored even though when I went I didn’t know anyone really - I was paid a Silicon Valley salary so high income compared to the typical local. Can afford a very nice lifestyle - due to demographics and being an “actual” expat, as opposed to English teacher, was respected Cons: - general quality of life. Traffic, pollution, food and water safety etc - can be hard to make deep connection except with other expats. Just different cultures and values. - lack of freedom and censorship. Vpn needed for everything, and even then doesn’t always work. Certain topics are avoided - there is a surface level fakeness that I personally really dislike. It’s a fun place to be for a while when you have the income and status. But for me at least not a place to be long term.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    You were paid ~150k+ USD in China, from a Chinese employer?
    - dumpster_fire 4y ago
      If you worked in FAANG and switched to say, Tencent, then yes. More than that.
    - yibg 4y ago
      Not a Chinese employer, although you'd be surprised at the comp levels for some companies in the larger city in China. I was working for a US employer with an office in China. EDIT: to provide more details. Total comp of 200k USD and up at some of the larger (e.g. BAT companies) isn't uncommon for the more senior folks.
      - nonethewiser 4y ago
        Interesting, thanks for sharing. And congrats
      - alwayslikethis 4y ago
- alisonatwork 4y ago
  I lived in China for several years and left during COVID. There are lots of things I miss about living there. The food was great. You could find fresh cooked stuff everywhere and fresh vegetables at the market every day. Getting delivery was cheap, easy and fast. As a well-paid tech worker, housing was affordable. There is a sense you are taking part in something important. That's difficult to explain, and it's something Americans in particular probably can't understand because their country is the same but even more so. When you come from a smaller or less powerful country, there is something exciting about becoming part of a society which has great influence internationally. When stuff that's happening locally ends up being major news because your country actually matters to the rest of the world, that's a neat feeling. The public transport and urban infrastructure was really good, even in low tier cities, although when the COVID restrictions hit all of that changed. And that's what made me realize that despite the benefits of centralized rule, it also can turn the country into a prison state overnight. Anyone living in China is familiar with seeing police and other uniformed and armed officials all over the place. Cameras all over the place. Party propaganda all over the place. But it doesn't seem all that sinister when it doesn't get in the way of your own personal life. When you can go to work, and go to the market, and go to the restaurant, and it's just a backdrop. It's only when those agents of oppression mobilize that it really sinks in how messed up it is. When uniformed officials in their tens storm in with clipboards and mancatchers to shut down your favorite restaurant or street vendor because someone important has decided it should no longer be open. When something the party doesn't like is said on a website you read every morning and suddenly that website is no longer available, period. When walls get erected around every neighborhood in the city and all those markets you used to visit in different districts are now behind checkpoints you cannot cross because you don't have the paperwork to visit them. Things improved after those first few months of COVID, but for me that was the real eye-opener. A lot of local people realized it too, and there was talk of how "now we are all Uyghurs". Of course, as the holder of a foreign passport, I had the privilege to be able to leave when I was fed up with the oppression. Most Chinese do not have that privilege. There are lots of other bad things about living in China. The blatant corruption, for one. The endless boondoggles and scams and the greedy scumbags who buy into the system and prop it up to enrich themselves. The classism is shameful for a so-called "communist" country. The way the urban middle class looks down on anyone who comes from the countryside or works low class jobs or didn't get a good education is depressing. Foreigners are second class citizens and always will be. Threads here ask about why people are called "expats" instead of "immigrants", and the answers are missing the point a bit. In China, as a migrant worker, you have no choice to become an immigrant. You must maintain your job or your visa will be canceled. There is no chance of getting citizenship. There is not even a hope of getting permanent residence. There is a strong undercurrent of racism that the government allows to exist, in so far as it doesn't actively stamp it out like it does other topics they prefer the people do not discuss. At every step of your life there, you will be reminded you are an outsider. When you can't sign up for the same services local people can because you don't have the same ID card, when you are told you can't stay at a hotel because management doesn't want to go to the trouble of registering you with the police daily, when yet another landlord refuses to rent to you despite you having all the money and the paperwork. However, having lived as a foreigner in other countries, I can say that these things aren't unique to China, they are often part of the migrant experience, and a lot of countries should do better. Of course, in China the bad things are compounded by the authoritarianism, and in the end, that just outweighed everything for me.
- mstaoru 4y ago
  I lived in China since 2008 (Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai), left Sep '22. The way the pandemic was handled in Shanghai was absolutely dehumanizing, and it became the last drop after which we just decided to GTFO and never come back. We (myself and my wife, who is Chinese) moved to Bangkok and I can confidently say it is a much happier and healthier place in every aspect. Many things about China are amazing: - e-commerce speed and proximity of everything, I work in SW/FW/HW intersection (IoT) and the ability to prototype things within a week was liberating, - public transportation and infrastructure is amazing, perfect roads, huge subway systems, CRH, - completely cashless society. Many things are not so amazing: - stifling censorship of everything even slightly critical, - food is just not good in Shanghai, quality- and taste-wise, Bangkok is much, much better, - terrible, overcrowded, dehumanizing healthcare, - outside of city center the city is rather gray and ugly, - everything is gargantuan in scale and feels built for aliens, - rudeness, constant shoving, spitting, loud speaking, smoking everywhere, - in Shanghai downtown every sidewalk is completely lined with rental bikes, scooters, people's bikes, often there's nowhere to walk but the street, - everything "historical" is fake, - terribly overpriced real estate, - the fact that after 15 years in China as an expat with an own house and Chinese family you still get nothing, no PR, no citizenship, nothing, - 996 is real, everybody is always stressed and overworked, - no real justice system, there is no attorney-client privilege, - entire industries can be decimated overnight by some new policy, - everything is "chabuduo", faucet leaks, chabuduo, just tape it with scotch tape, - complete lack of empathy to animals, don't watch Chinese tourists in the zoo (and don't go to local zoos), - there's a single purpose in life — make money, - no diversity, everyone is Han, everyone thinks pretty much the same, - no real religion, temples are there to gather money and bless your new business or a car, - if you drive a Bentley, you're a king of the road, yield only to Rolls-Royce, - ...I can continue, but probably this is enough :D
ersiees 4y ago
Why do we call people expats and not rich migrants or something like that?
- mr90210 4y ago
  - Basketball players are athletes - Not all athletes are basketball players
- jimbob45 4y ago
  Expats expect to come home at some point in their lives. Emigrants (the word I think you were looking for) leave for good. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/97835/difference-in-usage-between-expat-and-emigrant https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/97835/difference...
  - hahaxdxd123 4y ago
    If he had a family there, it seems to me like he was a migrant until the political circumstances forced him out.
  - carlmr 4y ago
    >Emigrants (the word I think you were looking for) Emigrants leave and immigrants come. It's two sides of the same coin. You can't emigrate without immigrating. Except if you manage to become stateless and remain on international territory. Migrants is just the term without the direction. Which is unnecessary if you're not talking about the country they leave or move to.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  There's a legal distinction. At least in America. An immigrant has an intent to settle, an expat doesn't. In America, one could theoretically lose work authorization should he refer or present himself as an immigrant.
  - cutemonster 4y ago
    That's what I've read, too, i.e. intent to settle, or not. Maybe wanting to move forever (i.e. migrant) is more common, if one is from a poorer country, which could explain why some others here thought that "immigrant" implied "poor and less educated".
tomohelix 4y ago
What I find ironic is that as businesses leave China, they move into the exact same type of culture in Vietnam and India. Vietnam is basically a mini China and India is trending towards the same authoritarian regime that most people find distasteful. The entire western world is so addicted to cheap labor I don't know what would happen when there is no more cheap labor to be found. There will be a huge social disruption when everyone everywhere in the world demands 100k salary a year with social benefits. That or AGIs come out and we get a disruption on the same scale. Fun fact, Vietnam is moving from 5 days work week to 6 days work week while the rest of us are demanding 4 days work week here in the US.
- catothedev 4y ago
  I've spent years in both China and Vietnam. I also used to believe the common phrase that Vietnam was a "mini China". Reality is different. It's no where near as repressive. Real Christianity & Buddhism is all over the place. Everyday people don't speak with the self-censorship I've seen in China (and I don't certainly don't censor myself the way I felt forced to in China). The internet is no where near as censored (or softly censored) as in China! This is a night-and-day level of difference. Ironically, in some regards, VN is more capitalist than the USA. Just go down any average street in Saigon and see how many entrepreneurs you find. And never saw 'chengguan' bossing people around in VN. Part of the reality is that communist policies failed so hard in VN after the communist takeover, many people had no choice but to stand-up-against-policy and be entrepreneurs regardless of official laws and that is baked into the culture now. Part of the reason VN's communist party isn't as powerful as China's communist party is because it does not have as much resources. But I would argue that part of the reason is the government really doesn't have the desire to be anywhere near as heavy-handed as the CCP. At some level, Vietnam seems to me like 'one big family' with a certain level of warmth to it, whereas China is just too big with too many intra-China conflicts for Chinese people to extend trust to other Chinese people. In my experience, there is a much further sense of distance in relations with PRC Chinese people (not e.g. Taiwan Chinese) that is difficult to overcome. People in the US/Europe forget that Vietnam had a border conflict with China following the France/VN US/VN conflicts -- the difference about the China conflict is that China truly does want to take over some of Vietnam's land for keeps -- this is understandably ingrained in everyday Vietnamese people's minds. Everyday VN people are commonly quite welcoming to visually-obvious-foreigners, whereas everyday PRC Chinese people are often times quite wary. Vietnam also operates within ASEAN. Singapore/Malaysia/Thailand/Indonesia/Philippines political opinions and security concerns impact Vietnam. I would say things in VN have changed a bit since Nguyen Phu Trong's leadership and Covid (globally democracy on average has taken a step back during this timeframe), but I've come to realize that calling Vietnam a "mini China" misses many important points.
tiny_ta 4y ago
It's so interesting to read this perspective since it drives home "the grass is always greener.." for me. I've lived a pretty charmed life in the US for the past few years (like the majority of HN, I imagine) but I find myself longing to move to a country with dense cities, affordable housing in the city center, great public infrastructure and a modicum of agreement among the citizens and China fits the bill pretty great for me. I understand that it might come at the cost of some personal freedom but I'm willing to pay that price for a great society in return. But reading this makes me think this is part of "the human condition" - the more time we spend in a bubble in a place, the more we either become blind to it's shortcomings or become overly rosy about a foreign place that would solve all our problems. As a sidenote, the author says he does not like his kids playing "war" in Chinese playgrounds - I wonder how he will feel about the active shooter drills that are now part of every kids life in the US. Note: I'm not Chinese.
- catothedev 4y ago
  If you want dense/affordable/good-public-transportation and you like east asia, I'd recommend Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Kaosiung. You can live in those places with far less political, language, thought-police concerns than mainland China.
- askonomm 4y ago
  This hits home for me a lot. I've lived in Spain, Argentina and Finland, all in hoping to fill whatever gap I thought it would, whether that would be life quality, weather, culture or whatever. But after the honeymoon period, the cracks started to show at every place. I'm now back in my home country, Estonia, which I (now) think is the best for me - but that creeping feeling of something better being somewhere out there is hard to shake, and still with me, even as I try to not think about that.
  - precompute 4y ago
    That's very interesting, what made you leave those countries? Argentina likely has money issues, but the other two come very "highly recommended" (high quality of life, law & order, etc), especially Finland.
jasonjei 4y ago
I used to travel to China all the time for work during my first job in 2008. Those times were super optimistic. Hong Kong was filled with Chinese pride, and it seemed inevitable that China would absorb Taiwan. China had just hosted the Olympics. I visited Hong Kong late 2018 after many years of not having been there. It was a very different place from the Hong Kong I had visited in 2009-2011. The energy was a bit darker. It almost felt like another Chinese city. I had even been to HK several times when I was in middle school in Taiwan (I was born in America, but was a “reverse import” to Taiwan) as well as a mandarin language tutor during university, and was always amazed by the richness of HK culture from fishing villages in Saikung to bustling life in Tsim Tsa Tsui and in Central with relics of British colonialism. Now many unique elements of HK life had disappeared. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s value to the Chinese diaspora can’t be understated—it’s a bastion of a mandarin-speaking democracy, or in software terms a hard fork of an alternate reality of what China could have been. It has cultivated its own culture, and retained elements of Chinese culture cancelled during the cultural revolution. It has its own identity from the aboriginal population, the settlers from the dynastic period, Japanese colonization, and influences from the Republic of China refugees (or occupiers, depending on your POV, post 1949 Chinese settlers) and American forces. And since 2018, I’ve seen the Taiwanese double down on their Taiwanese identity and pride, and in many ways Taiwan is the envy of China (also literally). If I were to live in Asia, it might have once included Hong Kong because of its unique British history. Now I would probably live in Taiwan and Japan. Edit: Taiwan hasn’t always been a democracy, and the path to democracy hasn’t been easy (just ask America). It’s not perfect like any other well-running democracy, but it’s the closest paragon we have in the Chinese diaspora. The presidency has transitioned peacefully to different parties since the 1990s.
- chenster 4y ago
  > it’s a bastion of a mandarin-speaking democracy, or in software terms a hard fork of an alternate reality of what China could have been. It has cultivated its own culture, and retained elements of Chinese culture cancelled during the cultural revolution. Precisely, I couldn't say it better.
- coldtea 4y ago
  >Meanwhile, Taiwan’s value to the Chinese diaspora can’t be understated—it’s a bastion of a mandarin-speaking democracy. A bastion of democracy which has been a right wing dictatorship from its inception until the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)
ren_engineer 4y ago
>But in order to live everyday life, most people living in China find it necessary to turn a blind eye until it affects them directly. That became impossible during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the force of China’s technocracy was on full display it's amazing how people were able to delude themselves for so long, Tiananmen should have been enough to make people and governments realize things weren't going to change
- FpUser 4y ago
  Things do change over the time. And if you are so willing to look back I am sure you'll find enough trash in a history of your own country.
  - simonh 4y ago
    They do change, in mainland China they have devolved considerably under Xi. I have Family over there, and a lot of the optimism of a decade ago was already being squeezed out of the country before the pandemic.
    - FpUser 4y ago
      Yes things devolved, and they might get better over the time. Or not. Nobody knows.
      - simonh 4y ago
        I’m not sure what point you are making. Things change is such a trivially obvious point, that could be made about anything in any context, that it seems basically irrelevant to any reasoned discourse. We all know that things change, so stating that fact communicates no useful information. It’s why and how things change that is interesting. In China things have changed because Xi and the Chinese communist party have chosen to change them in particular ways. It’s these choices and the consequences of them that we are discussing.
    - EFreethought 4y ago
paxys 4y ago
TL;DR 2000 – The government is kidnapping people from their beds in the middle of the night but that's a minor inconvenience. I'll just shut up and enjoy the economic gains. China is the best! 2022 – I can't believe the government is coming for my money and lifestyle. The tyranny was only supposed to affect the other people.
maskedinvader 4y ago
Can we at HN at-least refer to the author as immigrant as opposed to expats? what's an expat anyways ? why does the western world to get to make these tiers where they are expats but arabs, asians, africans etc are all immigrants ?
- jacooper 4y ago
  I think he is an expat, because he is writing from the perspective of the west. Also an expat left because he/she wanted to, not forced to.
  - toyg 4y ago
    A lot of economic migrants from the global South are not technically forced to leave: you can live a life of subsistence almost everywhere nowadays. They just think they'll have a better future elsewhere, exactly like expats.
- VerminOctopus1 4y ago
  I don’t think you can expect the HN crown to be anything but western chauvinists. It’s who we are.
- panza 4y ago
  An expat is not an immigrant. It would be incorrect to call the author - who is an expat - an immigrant.
  - vgchh 4y ago
    Resident Alien - I think that’s how USCIS calls people who do intend to stay but not immigrate
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Resident Alien - I think that’s how USCIS calls people who do intend to stay but not immigrate Resident alien is a general term (not specific to the US) for someone who permanently resides in a country without citizenship; it is also an IRS tax term for someone who is either a permanent resident alien or who meets the “substantial presence test” so that they are treated as residents for tax purposes. A permanent resident alien is another term for someone with a green card, which is for people who intend to (often, already have) immigrated before they qualify for naturalization.
shell0x 4y ago
Lots of people used to go to China for work and could do pretty much anything they want, but since Jinping took over it went downhill fast. Most people in the expat community I know went to Hong Kong and Singapore instead for the following reasons: 1) Easy to do business 2) Easy to get your money in and out. 3) Low taxes 4) Central travel hubs in Asia 5) Less backwards mindset as these cities feel more cosmopolitan and are interconnected with the outside world With HK having less and less freedom, Singapore is really the only choice for foreigners to have a decent life quality in Asia. Tokyo could potentially be an option too, but it's really hard to live there due the very different structures in Japanese society and taxes are pretty high.
- re-thc 4y ago
  HK's problem isn't exactly "just" freedom. Everything since has been going downhill.
  - D_Alex 4y ago
    IMO, Hong Kong's number 1 problem is that its unique position as the gateway to China has faded away, both the role as an intermediary and as a key shipping port. Everything else is just detail.
    - re-thc 4y ago
      That happened way later... the rot started way before that.
- angled 4y ago
  HK, it seems, doesn’t have the death penalty or corporal punishment. Let’s see how long that lasts, but for the time being that’s a huge positive over Singapore. Expat life is still pretty nice. Soho is bustling. Restaurants are reopening, clubs open to 6am. Stuff like SVB, CS, and flow on effect to legal is probably just a big an impact.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
y0ssar1an 4y ago
The Chinese invasion of Taiwan is inevitable. When it happens, every Western company will suddenly have to pull out, just like they did Russia. The losses for Western companies will be tremendous. For some, it will be a mortal blow. I can hear some of you saying "...but, but, China would never... because that would be so stupid...". It doesn't have to be a good idea! Russia's invasion of Ukraine a) wasn't a good idea, b) wasn't in Russia's best interest, c) had predictable devastating consequences for Russia's economy, and d) wasn't wanted by anybody (except Putin). Yet somehow it still happened. It happened because autocrats are all the same. They're always surrounded by enemies, because neighboring countries don't want to be subjugated. Once the autocrat gets the domestic opposition under control their attention turns to foreign enemies. The CCP has always been fixated on Taiwan. The mere existence of Taiwan refutes everything the CCP tells its people about why they can't have nice things (like democracy and individual liberty). The invasion will come when China thinks they can pull it off. Leave China now and protect your business.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  It was very worrying (albeit not surprising, of course) when Xi passed the threshold of the third term and officially is trying to make himself an indefinite ruler of China. The shift towards more one-man rule puts them on the path you outlined. If financial forces were any use they should already now divest from China as hard as they can.
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  I don't know if we can extrapolate from Ukraine what will happen with Taiwan. China isn't Russia, and the US have much more at stake too.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  I'd have to call you on a, b, and d - Russia saw it as integral to their existence as a nation, and it had to happen pretty much exactly when it happened or they would lose their (very very small) chance ever again. As it stands Russia probably won't exist in 50 years thanks to the damage that Putin accelerated. Look into the geopolitics of it. I recommend watching reports from RealLifeLore, Whatifalthist, CaspianReport and Peter Zeihan.
christkv 4y ago
Xi seems to literally copy Maos strategy. He even got his own little book. Just waiting for the new red guard and another cultural Revolution to happen at this point. It will be the Chinese people who bear the brunt of what happens next more than anyone else.
markus_zhang 4y ago
For me the biggest issue is that the bureaucracy has a lot of free hands in legislation. Each office can push out some regulation to go around the requirement for a proper legislation, which usually takes years. Also the mindset of deciding for the people instead of deciding by the people is pretty unpopular but people can't do much. The cultural inertia is strong. Whenever there is an issue, people automatically turn to a bigger government. The government tries to manage everything from the top, which creates a huge chain of issues. This all looks fine when the economy is good and booming, but when not then it's a different story. Basically the people transfer all power to the government in exchange for prosperity. Chinese people are materialistic in heart so a better material life mitigates all other problems. But what if everyone has to sacrifice for the "common" goal set from the top? It's hard to tell.
- ospider 4y ago
  Fun fact: you have to get an ISBN to release a game in China.
  - markus_zhang 4y ago
    Yeah, and there are a LOT regulation about the contents of the game. Curiously lootbox is perfectly OK.
antondd 4y ago
Warning: this thread is very likely to be heavily astroturfed by Chinese influence operations. This is exactly the type of question and discussion that provides a perfect opportunity to change or chip at your opinion on China. Hence: - “Taiwan is acqshually a dictatorship” - “The integration of HK was managed extremely well” - “China may have X, but whatabout Y in the US/decadent West/Europe” - “That’s it, I’m moving to China. Any tips?” I’m not saying any positive comments about China are manufactured. But given the amount of money and effort China spends on these type of influence operations, the context of this thread, and the type of audience HN attracts, chances are they are.
- coupdejarnac 4y ago
  Before the lab leak theory became socially acceptable, there were a lot of useful idiots speaking up on HN, and they were protected by the admins. It seems to be less of an issue lately, but then again I try to disengage from any discussion about China. It gets so frustrating reading opinions from people who have never been there or have been there for a week and think they have some deep insight.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  Citation needed: I'm not seeing a single comment claiming any of those. (Except noting that Taiwan was a dictatorship, but while it was, it's not one anymore.)
  - antondd 4y ago
    Plenty. - A supposed Latin American account; only comments (whitewashing really) are on posts, issues or themes related to China - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=RedCondor https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=RedCondor - An account with no comments elsewhere, bar this thread, commenting on how they want to move to China because: affordable housing, "great Chinese society", "going to let go off freedoms, but whatabout public shootings in the US", etc etc. etc. This is the identical messaging to what China is using on other SM platforms - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tiny_ta https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tiny_ta - A Chinese / Chinese nationalist's account. If you look through their comments you see they leave mostly political comments with the themes of "russia is winning" (China has been following russia's propaganda almost in almost a complete lockstep.), "USA has not right to intervene vis-a-vis Taiwan", "US elite", posting garbage from "resources largely excluded from the American mainstream" (as usual), 'conflict in Ukraine'. They left comments in this thread as well (a sad attempt at whitewashing Tiannamen). This is more relevant, however: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=xtian&next=34628768#34425784 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=xtian&next=34628768#... Now back to this thread. This is a curious case of an issue being relevant from both internal and external angles. The former - like I said before, the aim is to influence you. The latter - anyone within China who is contemplating to leave the country, just like the author is doing. China has been known to focus heavily on retaining people with technical skills within the country and also campaigning for skilled Chinese nationals to return back 'home'. Chinese influence operations have been detected everywhere: from 4chan boards to youtube videos and [insert your social media platform here]. What would make HN an exception?
photochemsyn 4y ago
I suspect China's draconian, desperate attempt to eliminate Covid entirely was largely due to official guilt. They knew that their poorly managed reckless science program at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the source of the outbreak, and they wanted to somehow prove they could wipe the virus out entirely (which they couldn't). Eventually they had to give up. I wonder what happens to people in China who point this out? Probably not good for the social credit score... Of course, WIV got a lot of funding for their CRISPR-gene-editing-of-bat-betacoronavirus program from the USA's NIH via the EcoHealth Alliance outfit, so the blame doesn't rest solely with them. Not that discussing that issue publicly in the USA was good for one's social credit score on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc. either, although I imagine the outcome in China was significantly worse for such speech. One does get the sense that certain US authorities and institutions are somewhat envious of China's ability to censor its own people, though.
- l5870uoo9y 4y ago
  This scientific recklessness should be broaden out, because (to my knowledge) gain-of-function research is still happening and even laboratories with the highest security lab-leaks happen.
- re-thc 4y ago
  They wanted to push their own locally developed vaccines, which didn't work as well so had no other choice. If they mass imported other vaccines it'd kill their own industries.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    The west did not have 1 billion spare vaccines, they were short themselves for first 1.5 years
    - re-thc 4y ago
      China's Fosun is 1 of the partners to Biontech to produce vaccines.
- 4y ago
rexpop 4y ago
> I had friends woken in the night and interrogated about their political beliefs, and I had friends forced to flee for speaking out about gender rights and other social issues. Oppression in China is real and effective. > It’s difficult for me to imagine a better place to have lived for the past two decades than China. I cannot understand how one mind could [fail to] reconcile these two statements. Obviously a place without state terrorism would be better! The author writes about political oppression as though it were merely a color of paint!
praylee 4y ago
Really can't see bright future as long as that man stays in power.
lapama 4y ago
The scene in the restaurant in Anhui is IMHO not real, I dispute its veracity.
- drytea001 4y ago
  As a Chinese, I believe what he said. On that day, my whole family and most friends were nervously checking their phones. They were afraid of a possible war between China and the US as there was a lot of propaganda on Chinese websites implying a war between China and the US if Pelosi come to visit Taiwan.
einhverfr 4y ago
I am an American expat who just moved from Germany to Indonesia about six months ago. One thing I see is that the comments he makes about China echo my views of the West. Where there was once optimism and openness, there is growing political repression (though in the US, we outsource this to the private sector so that we can actively argue that it doesn't exist). What is driving a lot of this in the West is the effort to sever economic ties with both Russia and China. I can imagine that this provokes a similar though opposite-facing response in countries like Russia and China, as if Newton's Third Law applies to geopolitics as well. My brother lives in Beijing, though. What I see in Southeast Asia, though, is quite different. While there is a lot of uncertainty about the direction of global geopolitics, and while this also has a strong effort at finding a direction towards economic development on their own terms. Indonesia is becoming increasingly assertive in this regard, for example banning export of nickel ore (and ending up in a legal fight with the EU over that), and planning to do the same for bauxite soon as well. These bans are designed to ensure that those who want to exploit the nation's natural resources have to contribute directly to its economic development on Indonesian and not WTO, US, or EU terms. Indonesian approaches to social management and rule of law are still quite foreign to me but these (even more than in the US) are very decentralized. A majority of the population still works independently or for small family businesses though the largest employer is the government. I still struggle with the disconnect between rules and laws. But the optimism here, in part born by the hope that the legacy of colonialism may finally be drawing to a close, is contagious. I think sometimes leaving the great powers can be liberating.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Moving from Germany to Indonesia is a wild move! Did you move to Bali or somewhere else? "the West": This term is meaningless to me. Does this include Africa, South America, AUS/NS, Middle East? "Where there was once optimism and openness, there is growing political repression": In continental Europe? I don't think so. Please provide concrete examples.
  - einhverfr 4y ago
    I am in Jakarta. was thinking of moving to Bali but that isn't practical. I think you know what "The West" is when you are outside it. If you look at which countries are sanctioning Russia, it overlaps almost entirely with that list (i.e. that list of states minus Japan and Korea though some folks might argue that Japan and Korea are in fact Western -- not including quasi-states like North Korea or Taiwan in that assessment). That doesn't say '"Where there was once optimism and openness, there is growing political repression": In continental Europe? I don't think so. Please provide concrete examples.' Certainly there is less than in the US due to the fact that free speech law binds the private sector as well as the public sector and that, in theory, discrimination on the basis of political or other opinion is forbidden. That being said, I watched protests during the Covid years treated differently depending on political views. In essence protests for in-favor causes were given go-aheads while protests for out-of-favor causes were restricted or banned. This may be changing now in Germany at least for the better. I don't like the far-right but when legal far-right parties are restricted in an ability to rally because political opponents to them blame the spread of Covid on them (overlooking more likely causes like cross-border commuting to a country with far higher problems), then I get nervous since usually I find myself, more often than not, fairly far left economically at least.
est 4y ago
> China’s leadership has made clear that they will prioritize unification and Party integrity over the economy and the well-being of their people. Even if China did conqure the land of Taiwan, it's difficult to support tens of millions of population to its pre-war living standards. Both mainland and taiwan had pension+aging population problems of their own. Conquest was the easy part, surviving the aftermath is difficult. Destroyed Taiwan economy, international boycott, etc.
miguelazo 4y ago
>“Oppression in China is real and effective.” Just imagine being black in the US.
physicles 4y ago
I've got some years in China. I speak Chinese, I'm eating a jianbing[1] as I write this. Didn't leave during the three years of zero covid. Reopening has changed everything about daily life in the best way. But I'm also looking for a way out. For the reasons outlined in the article, yes, and others. General sentiment toward foreigners has rebounded a bit since the early days of the pandemic, but it's pretty clear that the government would like all the Americans, Canadians and Brits to kindly GTFO. And everyone else seems to be leaving: I lost about half my friends in the last two years. My (privileged) problem is that I can't stomach the idea of moving back to the US. I moved here because I wanted to do something different with my life; the idea of living in the US again makes me feel like life would be over. Friends are moving to Singapore, Bangkok, Bali, Berlin, so I'll likely end up following them. Five years ago HK or Taipei might've been good options, but not these days. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jianbing_guozi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jianbing_guozi
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  Berlin as an option stands out both geographically and in cost of living. What makes it attractive despite that?
  - TomK32 4y ago
    Culturally it has a lot of offer, vibrant scenes for any art or music taste and museums stuffed artifacts stolen from all around the globe[0] that might almost rival the British Museum. Also many musicians and artists have called it their temporary home, from Josephine Baker to David Bowie and his flat mate Iggy Pop[1]. Call it a litmus-test for how open a society is, even if you prefer complaining about the noise and waste the Love Parade (or rather Rave the Planet since last year) produces. On the wider geography, Germany itself is quite diverse, with a 90 minute train ride to Hamburg you will notice a difference in culture and into the south your just-acquired German skill will face challenges from many dialects. The city is also a great starting point to across the borders into the nine neighbouring countries we Germans have fought against and alongside at various points of history. Oh, and we Germans thing we have humour... [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/travel/museums-stolen-art.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/travel/museums-stolen-art... [1] https://www.iheartberlin.de/2016/01/26/famous-exiles-of-berlin-musicians/ https://www.iheartberlin.de/2016/01/26/famous-exiles-of-berl...
windowshopping 4y ago
This article got me wondering: what is the difference between an immigrant and an expat? It seems like immigrant is the term used for someone migrating westward, and expat is the term used for someone migrating from a Western country eastward. For the sake of this definition we're considering North America the western limit of the world and Asia the Eastern limit. Opinions?
- pnt12 4y ago
  Westerns needed a new word to disassociate them from migrants.
anovikov 4y ago
TL;DR: every dictatorship inevitably follows the same path of self-destruction. How many generations should pass for people worldwide to realise there is no viable path to long-term prosperity than a democratic social order?
lilod 4y ago
As a Chinese, it's really damn interesting to see people talking about China in the comments (no matter good or bad)
- singularity2001 4y ago
  Is HN accessible without VPN or do you live outside? PS: 很高兴认识你;)
  - ospider 4y ago
    VPN is needed since ~2019.
textread 4y ago
Countries with the largest millionaire emigration: 1. Russia -15000 2. China -10000 3. India -8000 Countries with the largest millionaire immigration: 1. UAE +4000 2. Australia +3500 3. Singapore +2800 source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/millionaire-migration-2022_main.jpg https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/...
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Imagine if the ccp had dissolved itself, by becoming just the political framework, the shanghai clique, the traditionalists, becoming parties within the party and the legal system having a say in party inner affairs. Imagine all those who are trampled today by that caste system in china having a chance to shine. All those brilliance we will never see, cause it gets censored to dust by old bureaucrats could shine. 1 generation from now, china could have been culture wise something similar to japan or south korea. Instead we got this. The old errors, of walling oneself off from a percieved "hostile" outside world, of thinking one could be stand alone and the lack of seeing the need to change, to get away from the "conquer nature" mindset to a more symbiotic view of things. Its so sad. We had a glimpse, of what could be, but then it was back to the old imperial gameboard and the people turned back into figurines.
- ospider 4y ago
  Glimpse, that's all we can get for free. For the rest, we need to fight for it.
billychuck21st 4y ago
As a Chinese living outside China for the last 20 years, I was seriouly thinking about going back before the pandemic, but now that idea has gone for good, for reasons exactly like the article outlined.
gaoshan 4y ago
I've been in China, on and off, since 1996. Not living there full time but spending a month or two at a go. If I were to draw a graph of my own sense of optimism about where China was headed it would be a strong upward curve from the start up until a couple of years after the 2008 Olympics. By the time Xi took power in 2012 I was still thinking that he might be a positive influence. In many ways his early life, the political downfall and persecution of his father and Xi's own persecution during the Cultural Revolution had me primed to think that he might be a reformer. Someone that could possibly carry on in the footsteps of Deng Xiaopeng and really bring China across the finish line and into the world as a powerful and positive force for the planet at large. Instead the opposite happened. By 2013 what Xi was about was starting to come into focus. He carried out "anti-corruption" reforms but it didn't take long to see that these really just targeted his opponents (and the occasional ally that was worth making an example of... in Chinese 杀鸡给猴看 trans. kill the chicken to show the monkey). As crackdowns on China's fledgling independent media and various minorities intensified the curve on my chart dips and starts to dip hard. Now it is as low as it has ever been and heading downwards in freefall. I declined an opportunity to go back this Spring and part of me is very sad about this but China is headed to a dark place and I don't want to be there when it happens. Unfortunately when the time comes it will drag much of our world down with it, I fear.
steakscience 4y ago
The notion that the Chinese government became bad/evil only after Xi took power is comical

Leaving China

461 points by jseliger 4y ago

xiaolingxiao 4y ago

Can other expats who has since left, or have decided to stay, share their experience as well?

baybal2 4y ago
I've been working in, and out of South China since 2009, and have called it quit 2019, when it became clear the industry was done for, and CoVID mess only reinforced my decision. I never held any fraternal feelings with the country, even though I am ethnic Chinese, nor I had any delusions about making long term plans there. In my years there, I kept seeing rose coloured glasses wearing American expats. I met Tim Cook during his first travels to China as CEO at some random event in Shenzhen, only to see him regurgitate the official drivel. Since around 2016, I kept seeing more and more Western high flyers coming to official events there, seemingly trying to network with locals, and only to see them freak out at that. My regular conversation with them: - it's a damn communist regime, do your business and get out - no, it's different! there is no more communisms in China! no, it's state capitalism! no, things will change! no, I have a special plan from EY China expert! Most of them lived there for 2-3 years, and got out just as I told when the truth hit them. In the end, I outlived all of them there. China is a communist regime, though a very well doing for some years.
- chasil 4y ago
  You have a decisive level of bravery for your willingness to say this. I applaud you for your clarity on the country of your ancestors. It is a shame.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    I see comment chains touching on this topic in nearly every post even tangentially related to China, and it's rarely ever that the main issue is mentioned. So I'll write this for the benefit of any passing reader with similar thoughts. In a country of 1.x billions, it shouldn't be surprising that there would be at least a few tens of millions of hardcore, actual socialists, who genuinely believe in some distant future communist utopia. Even if the entire rest of the population were the most perfect paragons of virtue imaginable, it's still likely going to be the hardcore folks willing to fight to the death en bloc that end up with the actual power. That's just how the cookie crumbles in every country. Whether it's ultra-Maoists in China, or ultra-Hindus in India, or ultra-muslims in Islamic countries, ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, etc.. The real question is whether or not the bulk of the hardcore group can be enticed with enough potential rewards to moderate their views. Wealth works if there's a lot to go around, like in the U.S., EU, etc., but otherwise the hardcore group needs to be paid in some form of power, geopolitical, cultural, etc.
    - woooooo 4y ago
      Is this based on political experience there? My view from the outside was that it's really similar to climbing the ladder in a corporation, mouth all the platitudes but only suckers believe them.
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        > My view from the outside was that it's really similar to climbing the ladder in a corporation, mouth all the platitudes but only suckers believe them. Humans are not perfect deceivers, even the average Joe can usually tell if someone's fishy within a 10 minute face-to-face conversation. There do exist really expert and cunning deceivers, but the folks higher up in the hierarchy will also commensurately be better equipped to see through it. So for a large enough hierarchy, the practical impossibility of duping so many means that only genuine believers end up near the top. You don't even need to go Beijing to see this dynamic play out, there's a company in Cupertino where many folks allege this is the case (though to be fair some allege the non-believers are also moving up the ladder).
- baybal2 4y ago
  The fallacy of "reformed communism" hopers is that with development came not their hoped reform, but even stronger regime, and harder life. Way more, many times more rich Chinese are fleeing China now, when it reached some level of wealth, and industrialisation, than back 10-15 years ago, when China was incomparably poorer, and everyday life was incomparably harder. All of that was easily predictable. You have a terrible regime, you give it money, and power. It only becomes stronger, and more terrible, not less. Communism is irreformable.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  Had me fooled I thought you were a Pakistani for quite a while
  - lmz 4y ago
    Chinese-Russian it seems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33922218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33922218
hayst4ck 4y ago
I am not an expat, but I was considering spending several months in China. After Hong Kong, there was a strong message of "Americans caused this," likewise after covid there was a strong message of "this didn't start in China, this actually started in America." It wasn't just a message of "America is our enemy," but looking at how the People in Hong Kong were robbed of due process from an impartial justice system it was clear that if there was a problem we would also not get due process. The Canadians arrested without due process in response to Huawei leaders being arrested was another story that says "China might do bad things to you in response to things you don't have control over." As an American I felt it was made clear that we were the enemy and we would not get due process. I was planning to spend several months in China, but chose not to because of Hong Kong. My choice was re-inforced because of the covid response. I am open to the idea that international media was being unfair to China, but I had experiences which made me realize this was not the case. - I met a person who just got out of china. She was an early 20s English teacher who didn't know why she was put in prison, but spent a couple weeks in Chinese prison until the US state department said 'give her back, now.' She figured she failed some kind of political question she was asked or made a statement about Taiwan she shouldn't have. She said she probably would still be there if her boyfriend hadn't called the US state department saying he hasn't heard from her and didn't know what happened. - Another woman I met on a plane said that the people who ran the school she taught at threatened to revoke her visa trapping her in China. She said she was leaving for "vacation" but was not going to go back. She was also visibly shaken. - A Hong Kong person I met broke down the way China was destroying Hong Kong culture and acting like an imperial ruler. - Hong Kong went from feeling like a lively place to feeling like a dominated place. The energy left the city. - Seeing the video of Triads in the train station made it clear that the Chinese government was in bed with organized crime. Seeing triads be the foot soldiers of the CPC was something I had never seen before. It made it clear that if China wanted to achieve a goal, it would use any method regardless of how right or wrong it is. It was just one more element of "our legal system is pretext, we will do what we want." - I spent some time in China with a Chinese woman and she was constantly "correcting" me about any implication that Hong Kong or Taiwan was a country. It made me realize that I can't just hide my beliefs, they will manifest in my language, and that will put me at risk.
- 4y ago
yibg 4y ago
I spent 3 years in China before Covid. Happened to be out of the country during initial lockdown and that was that. My experiences are pre Covid so things may be different now, I don’t know. Pros: - very vibrant, never bored even though when I went I didn’t know anyone really - I was paid a Silicon Valley salary so high income compared to the typical local. Can afford a very nice lifestyle - due to demographics and being an “actual” expat, as opposed to English teacher, was respected Cons: - general quality of life. Traffic, pollution, food and water safety etc - can be hard to make deep connection except with other expats. Just different cultures and values. - lack of freedom and censorship. Vpn needed for everything, and even then doesn’t always work. Certain topics are avoided - there is a surface level fakeness that I personally really dislike. It’s a fun place to be for a while when you have the income and status. But for me at least not a place to be long term.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  You were paid ~150k+ USD in China, from a Chinese employer?
  - dumpster_fire 4y ago
    If you worked in FAANG and switched to say, Tencent, then yes. More than that.
  - yibg 4y ago
    Not a Chinese employer, although you'd be surprised at the comp levels for some companies in the larger city in China. I was working for a US employer with an office in China. EDIT: to provide more details. Total comp of 200k USD and up at some of the larger (e.g. BAT companies) isn't uncommon for the more senior folks.
    - nonethewiser 4y ago
      Interesting, thanks for sharing. And congrats
    - alwayslikethis 4y ago
alisonatwork 4y ago
I lived in China for several years and left during COVID. There are lots of things I miss about living there. The food was great. You could find fresh cooked stuff everywhere and fresh vegetables at the market every day. Getting delivery was cheap, easy and fast. As a well-paid tech worker, housing was affordable. There is a sense you are taking part in something important. That's difficult to explain, and it's something Americans in particular probably can't understand because their country is the same but even more so. When you come from a smaller or less powerful country, there is something exciting about becoming part of a society which has great influence internationally. When stuff that's happening locally ends up being major news because your country actually matters to the rest of the world, that's a neat feeling. The public transport and urban infrastructure was really good, even in low tier cities, although when the COVID restrictions hit all of that changed. And that's what made me realize that despite the benefits of centralized rule, it also can turn the country into a prison state overnight. Anyone living in China is familiar with seeing police and other uniformed and armed officials all over the place. Cameras all over the place. Party propaganda all over the place. But it doesn't seem all that sinister when it doesn't get in the way of your own personal life. When you can go to work, and go to the market, and go to the restaurant, and it's just a backdrop. It's only when those agents of oppression mobilize that it really sinks in how messed up it is. When uniformed officials in their tens storm in with clipboards and mancatchers to shut down your favorite restaurant or street vendor because someone important has decided it should no longer be open. When something the party doesn't like is said on a website you read every morning and suddenly that website is no longer available, period. When walls get erected around every neighborhood in the city and all those markets you used to visit in different districts are now behind checkpoints you cannot cross because you don't have the paperwork to visit them. Things improved after those first few months of COVID, but for me that was the real eye-opener. A lot of local people realized it too, and there was talk of how "now we are all Uyghurs". Of course, as the holder of a foreign passport, I had the privilege to be able to leave when I was fed up with the oppression. Most Chinese do not have that privilege. There are lots of other bad things about living in China. The blatant corruption, for one. The endless boondoggles and scams and the greedy scumbags who buy into the system and prop it up to enrich themselves. The classism is shameful for a so-called "communist" country. The way the urban middle class looks down on anyone who comes from the countryside or works low class jobs or didn't get a good education is depressing. Foreigners are second class citizens and always will be. Threads here ask about why people are called "expats" instead of "immigrants", and the answers are missing the point a bit. In China, as a migrant worker, you have no choice to become an immigrant. You must maintain your job or your visa will be canceled. There is no chance of getting citizenship. There is not even a hope of getting permanent residence. There is a strong undercurrent of racism that the government allows to exist, in so far as it doesn't actively stamp it out like it does other topics they prefer the people do not discuss. At every step of your life there, you will be reminded you are an outsider. When you can't sign up for the same services local people can because you don't have the same ID card, when you are told you can't stay at a hotel because management doesn't want to go to the trouble of registering you with the police daily, when yet another landlord refuses to rent to you despite you having all the money and the paperwork. However, having lived as a foreigner in other countries, I can say that these things aren't unique to China, they are often part of the migrant experience, and a lot of countries should do better. Of course, in China the bad things are compounded by the authoritarianism, and in the end, that just outweighed everything for me.
mstaoru 4y ago
I lived in China since 2008 (Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai), left Sep '22. The way the pandemic was handled in Shanghai was absolutely dehumanizing, and it became the last drop after which we just decided to GTFO and never come back. We (myself and my wife, who is Chinese) moved to Bangkok and I can confidently say it is a much happier and healthier place in every aspect. Many things about China are amazing: - e-commerce speed and proximity of everything, I work in SW/FW/HW intersection (IoT) and the ability to prototype things within a week was liberating, - public transportation and infrastructure is amazing, perfect roads, huge subway systems, CRH, - completely cashless society. Many things are not so amazing: - stifling censorship of everything even slightly critical, - food is just not good in Shanghai, quality- and taste-wise, Bangkok is much, much better, - terrible, overcrowded, dehumanizing healthcare, - outside of city center the city is rather gray and ugly, - everything is gargantuan in scale and feels built for aliens, - rudeness, constant shoving, spitting, loud speaking, smoking everywhere, - in Shanghai downtown every sidewalk is completely lined with rental bikes, scooters, people's bikes, often there's nowhere to walk but the street, - everything "historical" is fake, - terribly overpriced real estate, - the fact that after 15 years in China as an expat with an own house and Chinese family you still get nothing, no PR, no citizenship, nothing, - 996 is real, everybody is always stressed and overworked, - no real justice system, there is no attorney-client privilege, - entire industries can be decimated overnight by some new policy, - everything is "chabuduo", faucet leaks, chabuduo, just tape it with scotch tape, - complete lack of empathy to animals, don't watch Chinese tourists in the zoo (and don't go to local zoos), - there's a single purpose in life — make money, - no diversity, everyone is Han, everyone thinks pretty much the same, - no real religion, temples are there to gather money and bless your new business or a car, - if you drive a Bentley, you're a king of the road, yield only to Rolls-Royce, - ...I can continue, but probably this is enough :D

ersiees 4y ago

Why do we call people expats and not rich migrants or something like that?

mr90210 4y ago
- Basketball players are athletes - Not all athletes are basketball players
jimbob45 4y ago
Expats expect to come home at some point in their lives. Emigrants (the word I think you were looking for) leave for good. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/97835/difference-in-usage-between-expat-and-emigrant https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/97835/difference...
- hahaxdxd123 4y ago
  If he had a family there, it seems to me like he was a migrant until the political circumstances forced him out.
- carlmr 4y ago
  >Emigrants (the word I think you were looking for) Emigrants leave and immigrants come. It's two sides of the same coin. You can't emigrate without immigrating. Except if you manage to become stateless and remain on international territory. Migrants is just the term without the direction. Which is unnecessary if you're not talking about the country they leave or move to.
908B64B197 4y ago
There's a legal distinction. At least in America. An immigrant has an intent to settle, an expat doesn't. In America, one could theoretically lose work authorization should he refer or present himself as an immigrant.
- cutemonster 4y ago
  That's what I've read, too, i.e. intent to settle, or not. Maybe wanting to move forever (i.e. migrant) is more common, if one is from a poorer country, which could explain why some others here thought that "immigrant" implied "poor and less educated".

tomohelix 4y ago

What I find ironic is that as businesses leave China, they move into the exact same type of culture in Vietnam and India. Vietnam is basically a mini China and India is trending towards the same authoritarian regime that most people find distasteful. The entire western world is so addicted to cheap labor I don't know what would happen when there is no more cheap labor to be found. There will be a huge social disruption when everyone everywhere in the world demands 100k salary a year with social benefits. That or AGIs come out and we get a disruption on the same scale. Fun fact, Vietnam is moving from 5 days work week to 6 days work week while the rest of us are demanding 4 days work week here in the US.

catothedev 4y ago
I've spent years in both China and Vietnam. I also used to believe the common phrase that Vietnam was a "mini China". Reality is different. It's no where near as repressive. Real Christianity & Buddhism is all over the place. Everyday people don't speak with the self-censorship I've seen in China (and I don't certainly don't censor myself the way I felt forced to in China). The internet is no where near as censored (or softly censored) as in China! This is a night-and-day level of difference. Ironically, in some regards, VN is more capitalist than the USA. Just go down any average street in Saigon and see how many entrepreneurs you find. And never saw 'chengguan' bossing people around in VN. Part of the reality is that communist policies failed so hard in VN after the communist takeover, many people had no choice but to stand-up-against-policy and be entrepreneurs regardless of official laws and that is baked into the culture now. Part of the reason VN's communist party isn't as powerful as China's communist party is because it does not have as much resources. But I would argue that part of the reason is the government really doesn't have the desire to be anywhere near as heavy-handed as the CCP. At some level, Vietnam seems to me like 'one big family' with a certain level of warmth to it, whereas China is just too big with too many intra-China conflicts for Chinese people to extend trust to other Chinese people. In my experience, there is a much further sense of distance in relations with PRC Chinese people (not e.g. Taiwan Chinese) that is difficult to overcome. People in the US/Europe forget that Vietnam had a border conflict with China following the France/VN US/VN conflicts -- the difference about the China conflict is that China truly does want to take over some of Vietnam's land for keeps -- this is understandably ingrained in everyday Vietnamese people's minds. Everyday VN people are commonly quite welcoming to visually-obvious-foreigners, whereas everyday PRC Chinese people are often times quite wary. Vietnam also operates within ASEAN. Singapore/Malaysia/Thailand/Indonesia/Philippines political opinions and security concerns impact Vietnam. I would say things in VN have changed a bit since Nguyen Phu Trong's leadership and Covid (globally democracy on average has taken a step back during this timeframe), but I've come to realize that calling Vietnam a "mini China" misses many important points.

tiny_ta 4y ago

It's so interesting to read this perspective since it drives home "the grass is always greener.." for me. I've lived a pretty charmed life in the US for the past few years (like the majority of HN, I imagine) but I find myself longing to move to a country with dense cities, affordable housing in the city center, great public infrastructure and a modicum of agreement among the citizens and China fits the bill pretty great for me. I understand that it might come at the cost of some personal freedom but I'm willing to pay that price for a great society in return. But reading this makes me think this is part of "the human condition" - the more time we spend in a bubble in a place, the more we either become blind to it's shortcomings or become overly rosy about a foreign place that would solve all our problems. As a sidenote, the author says he does not like his kids playing "war" in Chinese playgrounds - I wonder how he will feel about the active shooter drills that are now part of every kids life in the US. Note: I'm not Chinese.

catothedev 4y ago
If you want dense/affordable/good-public-transportation and you like east asia, I'd recommend Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Taipei, Kaosiung. You can live in those places with far less political, language, thought-police concerns than mainland China.
askonomm 4y ago
This hits home for me a lot. I've lived in Spain, Argentina and Finland, all in hoping to fill whatever gap I thought it would, whether that would be life quality, weather, culture or whatever. But after the honeymoon period, the cracks started to show at every place. I'm now back in my home country, Estonia, which I (now) think is the best for me - but that creeping feeling of something better being somewhere out there is hard to shake, and still with me, even as I try to not think about that.
- precompute 4y ago
  That's very interesting, what made you leave those countries? Argentina likely has money issues, but the other two come very "highly recommended" (high quality of life, law & order, etc), especially Finland.

jasonjei 4y ago

I used to travel to China all the time for work during my first job in 2008. Those times were super optimistic. Hong Kong was filled with Chinese pride, and it seemed inevitable that China would absorb Taiwan. China had just hosted the Olympics. I visited Hong Kong late 2018 after many years of not having been there. It was a very different place from the Hong Kong I had visited in 2009-2011. The energy was a bit darker. It almost felt like another Chinese city. I had even been to HK several times when I was in middle school in Taiwan (I was born in America, but was a “reverse import” to Taiwan) as well as a mandarin language tutor during university, and was always amazed by the richness of HK culture from fishing villages in Saikung to bustling life in Tsim Tsa Tsui and in Central with relics of British colonialism. Now many unique elements of HK life had disappeared. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s value to the Chinese diaspora can’t be understated—it’s a bastion of a mandarin-speaking democracy, or in software terms a hard fork of an alternate reality of what China could have been. It has cultivated its own culture, and retained elements of Chinese culture cancelled during the cultural revolution. It has its own identity from the aboriginal population, the settlers from the dynastic period, Japanese colonization, and influences from the Republic of China refugees (or occupiers, depending on your POV, post 1949 Chinese settlers) and American forces. And since 2018, I’ve seen the Taiwanese double down on their Taiwanese identity and pride, and in many ways Taiwan is the envy of China (also literally). If I were to live in Asia, it might have once included Hong Kong because of its unique British history. Now I would probably live in Taiwan and Japan. Edit: Taiwan hasn’t always been a democracy, and the path to democracy hasn’t been easy (just ask America). It’s not perfect like any other well-running democracy, but it’s the closest paragon we have in the Chinese diaspora. The presidency has transitioned peacefully to different parties since the 1990s.

chenster 4y ago
> it’s a bastion of a mandarin-speaking democracy, or in software terms a hard fork of an alternate reality of what China could have been. It has cultivated its own culture, and retained elements of Chinese culture cancelled during the cultural revolution. Precisely, I couldn't say it better.
coldtea 4y ago
>Meanwhile, Taiwan’s value to the Chinese diaspora can’t be understated—it’s a bastion of a mandarin-speaking democracy. A bastion of democracy which has been a right wing dictatorship from its inception until the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)

ren_engineer 4y ago

>But in order to live everyday life, most people living in China find it necessary to turn a blind eye until it affects them directly. That became impossible during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the force of China’s technocracy was on full display it's amazing how people were able to delude themselves for so long, Tiananmen should have been enough to make people and governments realize things weren't going to change

FpUser 4y ago
Things do change over the time. And if you are so willing to look back I am sure you'll find enough trash in a history of your own country.
- simonh 4y ago
  They do change, in mainland China they have devolved considerably under Xi. I have Family over there, and a lot of the optimism of a decade ago was already being squeezed out of the country before the pandemic.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    Yes things devolved, and they might get better over the time. Or not. Nobody knows.
    - simonh 4y ago
      I’m not sure what point you are making. Things change is such a trivially obvious point, that could be made about anything in any context, that it seems basically irrelevant to any reasoned discourse. We all know that things change, so stating that fact communicates no useful information. It’s why and how things change that is interesting. In China things have changed because Xi and the Chinese communist party have chosen to change them in particular ways. It’s these choices and the consequences of them that we are discussing.
  - EFreethought 4y ago

paxys 4y ago

TL;DR 2000 – The government is kidnapping people from their beds in the middle of the night but that's a minor inconvenience. I'll just shut up and enjoy the economic gains. China is the best! 2022 – I can't believe the government is coming for my money and lifestyle. The tyranny was only supposed to affect the other people.

maskedinvader 4y ago

Can we at HN at-least refer to the author as immigrant as opposed to expats? what's an expat anyways ? why does the western world to get to make these tiers where they are expats but arabs, asians, africans etc are all immigrants ?

jacooper 4y ago
I think he is an expat, because he is writing from the perspective of the west. Also an expat left because he/she wanted to, not forced to.
- toyg 4y ago
  A lot of economic migrants from the global South are not technically forced to leave: you can live a life of subsistence almost everywhere nowadays. They just think they'll have a better future elsewhere, exactly like expats.
VerminOctopus1 4y ago
I don’t think you can expect the HN crown to be anything but western chauvinists. It’s who we are.
panza 4y ago
An expat is not an immigrant. It would be incorrect to call the author - who is an expat - an immigrant.
- vgchh 4y ago
  Resident Alien - I think that’s how USCIS calls people who do intend to stay but not immigrate
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Resident Alien - I think that’s how USCIS calls people who do intend to stay but not immigrate Resident alien is a general term (not specific to the US) for someone who permanently resides in a country without citizenship; it is also an IRS tax term for someone who is either a permanent resident alien or who meets the “substantial presence test” so that they are treated as residents for tax purposes. A permanent resident alien is another term for someone with a green card, which is for people who intend to (often, already have) immigrated before they qualify for naturalization.

shell0x 4y ago

Lots of people used to go to China for work and could do pretty much anything they want, but since Jinping took over it went downhill fast. Most people in the expat community I know went to Hong Kong and Singapore instead for the following reasons: 1) Easy to do business 2) Easy to get your money in and out. 3) Low taxes 4) Central travel hubs in Asia 5) Less backwards mindset as these cities feel more cosmopolitan and are interconnected with the outside world With HK having less and less freedom, Singapore is really the only choice for foreigners to have a decent life quality in Asia. Tokyo could potentially be an option too, but it's really hard to live there due the very different structures in Japanese society and taxes are pretty high.

re-thc 4y ago
HK's problem isn't exactly "just" freedom. Everything since has been going downhill.
- D_Alex 4y ago
  IMO, Hong Kong's number 1 problem is that its unique position as the gateway to China has faded away, both the role as an intermediary and as a key shipping port. Everything else is just detail.
  - re-thc 4y ago
    That happened way later... the rot started way before that.
angled 4y ago
HK, it seems, doesn’t have the death penalty or corporal punishment. Let’s see how long that lasts, but for the time being that’s a huge positive over Singapore. Expat life is still pretty nice. Soho is bustling. Restaurants are reopening, clubs open to 6am. Stuff like SVB, CS, and flow on effect to legal is probably just a big an impact.
- rippercushions 4y ago

y0ssar1an 4y ago

The Chinese invasion of Taiwan is inevitable. When it happens, every Western company will suddenly have to pull out, just like they did Russia. The losses for Western companies will be tremendous. For some, it will be a mortal blow. I can hear some of you saying "...but, but, China would never... because that would be so stupid...". It doesn't have to be a good idea! Russia's invasion of Ukraine a) wasn't a good idea, b) wasn't in Russia's best interest, c) had predictable devastating consequences for Russia's economy, and d) wasn't wanted by anybody (except Putin). Yet somehow it still happened. It happened because autocrats are all the same. They're always surrounded by enemies, because neighboring countries don't want to be subjugated. Once the autocrat gets the domestic opposition under control their attention turns to foreign enemies. The CCP has always been fixated on Taiwan. The mere existence of Taiwan refutes everything the CCP tells its people about why they can't have nice things (like democracy and individual liberty). The invasion will come when China thinks they can pull it off. Leave China now and protect your business.

kzrdude 4y ago
It was very worrying (albeit not surprising, of course) when Xi passed the threshold of the third term and officially is trying to make himself an indefinite ruler of China. The shift towards more one-man rule puts them on the path you outlined. If financial forces were any use they should already now divest from China as hard as they can.
yodsanklai 4y ago
I don't know if we can extrapolate from Ukraine what will happen with Taiwan. China isn't Russia, and the US have much more at stake too.
mikrotikker 4y ago
I'd have to call you on a, b, and d - Russia saw it as integral to their existence as a nation, and it had to happen pretty much exactly when it happened or they would lose their (very very small) chance ever again. As it stands Russia probably won't exist in 50 years thanks to the damage that Putin accelerated. Look into the geopolitics of it. I recommend watching reports from RealLifeLore, Whatifalthist, CaspianReport and Peter Zeihan.

christkv 4y ago

Xi seems to literally copy Maos strategy. He even got his own little book. Just waiting for the new red guard and another cultural Revolution to happen at this point. It will be the Chinese people who bear the brunt of what happens next more than anyone else.

markus_zhang 4y ago

For me the biggest issue is that the bureaucracy has a lot of free hands in legislation. Each office can push out some regulation to go around the requirement for a proper legislation, which usually takes years. Also the mindset of deciding for the people instead of deciding by the people is pretty unpopular but people can't do much. The cultural inertia is strong. Whenever there is an issue, people automatically turn to a bigger government. The government tries to manage everything from the top, which creates a huge chain of issues. This all looks fine when the economy is good and booming, but when not then it's a different story. Basically the people transfer all power to the government in exchange for prosperity. Chinese people are materialistic in heart so a better material life mitigates all other problems. But what if everyone has to sacrifice for the "common" goal set from the top? It's hard to tell.

ospider 4y ago
Fun fact: you have to get an ISBN to release a game in China.
- markus_zhang 4y ago
  Yeah, and there are a LOT regulation about the contents of the game. Curiously lootbox is perfectly OK.

antondd 4y ago

Warning: this thread is very likely to be heavily astroturfed by Chinese influence operations. This is exactly the type of question and discussion that provides a perfect opportunity to change or chip at your opinion on China. Hence: - “Taiwan is acqshually a dictatorship” - “The integration of HK was managed extremely well” - “China may have X, but whatabout Y in the US/decadent West/Europe” - “That’s it, I’m moving to China. Any tips?” I’m not saying any positive comments about China are manufactured. But given the amount of money and effort China spends on these type of influence operations, the context of this thread, and the type of audience HN attracts, chances are they are.

coupdejarnac 4y ago
Before the lab leak theory became socially acceptable, there were a lot of useful idiots speaking up on HN, and they were protected by the admins. It seems to be less of an issue lately, but then again I try to disengage from any discussion about China. It gets so frustrating reading opinions from people who have never been there or have been there for a week and think they have some deep insight.
rippercushions 4y ago
Citation needed: I'm not seeing a single comment claiming any of those. (Except noting that Taiwan was a dictatorship, but while it was, it's not one anymore.)
- antondd 4y ago
  Plenty. - A supposed Latin American account; only comments (whitewashing really) are on posts, issues or themes related to China - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=RedCondor https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=RedCondor - An account with no comments elsewhere, bar this thread, commenting on how they want to move to China because: affordable housing, "great Chinese society", "going to let go off freedoms, but whatabout public shootings in the US", etc etc. etc. This is the identical messaging to what China is using on other SM platforms - https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tiny_ta https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tiny_ta - A Chinese / Chinese nationalist's account. If you look through their comments you see they leave mostly political comments with the themes of "russia is winning" (China has been following russia's propaganda almost in almost a complete lockstep.), "USA has not right to intervene vis-a-vis Taiwan", "US elite", posting garbage from "resources largely excluded from the American mainstream" (as usual), 'conflict in Ukraine'. They left comments in this thread as well (a sad attempt at whitewashing Tiannamen). This is more relevant, however: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=xtian&next=34628768#34425784 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=xtian&next=34628768#... Now back to this thread. This is a curious case of an issue being relevant from both internal and external angles. The former - like I said before, the aim is to influence you. The latter - anyone within China who is contemplating to leave the country, just like the author is doing. China has been known to focus heavily on retaining people with technical skills within the country and also campaigning for skilled Chinese nationals to return back 'home'. Chinese influence operations have been detected everywhere: from 4chan boards to youtube videos and [insert your social media platform here]. What would make HN an exception?

photochemsyn 4y ago

I suspect China's draconian, desperate attempt to eliminate Covid entirely was largely due to official guilt. They knew that their poorly managed reckless science program at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the source of the outbreak, and they wanted to somehow prove they could wipe the virus out entirely (which they couldn't). Eventually they had to give up. I wonder what happens to people in China who point this out? Probably not good for the social credit score... Of course, WIV got a lot of funding for their CRISPR-gene-editing-of-bat-betacoronavirus program from the USA's NIH via the EcoHealth Alliance outfit, so the blame doesn't rest solely with them. Not that discussing that issue publicly in the USA was good for one's social credit score on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc. either, although I imagine the outcome in China was significantly worse for such speech. One does get the sense that certain US authorities and institutions are somewhat envious of China's ability to censor its own people, though.

l5870uoo9y 4y ago
This scientific recklessness should be broaden out, because (to my knowledge) gain-of-function research is still happening and even laboratories with the highest security lab-leaks happen.
re-thc 4y ago
They wanted to push their own locally developed vaccines, which didn't work as well so had no other choice. If they mass imported other vaccines it'd kill their own industries.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  The west did not have 1 billion spare vaccines, they were short themselves for first 1.5 years
  - re-thc 4y ago
    China's Fosun is 1 of the partners to Biontech to produce vaccines.
4y ago

rexpop 4y ago

> I had friends woken in the night and interrogated about their political beliefs, and I had friends forced to flee for speaking out about gender rights and other social issues. Oppression in China is real and effective. > It’s difficult for me to imagine a better place to have lived for the past two decades than China. I cannot understand how one mind could [fail to] reconcile these two statements. Obviously a place without state terrorism would be better! The author writes about political oppression as though it were merely a color of paint!

praylee 4y ago

Really can't see bright future as long as that man stays in power.

lapama 4y ago

The scene in the restaurant in Anhui is IMHO not real, I dispute its veracity.

drytea001 4y ago
As a Chinese, I believe what he said. On that day, my whole family and most friends were nervously checking their phones. They were afraid of a possible war between China and the US as there was a lot of propaganda on Chinese websites implying a war between China and the US if Pelosi come to visit Taiwan.

einhverfr 4y ago

I am an American expat who just moved from Germany to Indonesia about six months ago. One thing I see is that the comments he makes about China echo my views of the West. Where there was once optimism and openness, there is growing political repression (though in the US, we outsource this to the private sector so that we can actively argue that it doesn't exist). What is driving a lot of this in the West is the effort to sever economic ties with both Russia and China. I can imagine that this provokes a similar though opposite-facing response in countries like Russia and China, as if Newton's Third Law applies to geopolitics as well. My brother lives in Beijing, though. What I see in Southeast Asia, though, is quite different. While there is a lot of uncertainty about the direction of global geopolitics, and while this also has a strong effort at finding a direction towards economic development on their own terms. Indonesia is becoming increasingly assertive in this regard, for example banning export of nickel ore (and ending up in a legal fight with the EU over that), and planning to do the same for bauxite soon as well. These bans are designed to ensure that those who want to exploit the nation's natural resources have to contribute directly to its economic development on Indonesian and not WTO, US, or EU terms. Indonesian approaches to social management and rule of law are still quite foreign to me but these (even more than in the US) are very decentralized. A majority of the population still works independently or for small family businesses though the largest employer is the government. I still struggle with the disconnect between rules and laws. But the optimism here, in part born by the hope that the legacy of colonialism may finally be drawing to a close, is contagious. I think sometimes leaving the great powers can be liberating.

throwaway2037 4y ago
Moving from Germany to Indonesia is a wild move! Did you move to Bali or somewhere else? "the West": This term is meaningless to me. Does this include Africa, South America, AUS/NS, Middle East? "Where there was once optimism and openness, there is growing political repression": In continental Europe? I don't think so. Please provide concrete examples.
- einhverfr 4y ago
  I am in Jakarta. was thinking of moving to Bali but that isn't practical. I think you know what "The West" is when you are outside it. If you look at which countries are sanctioning Russia, it overlaps almost entirely with that list (i.e. that list of states minus Japan and Korea though some folks might argue that Japan and Korea are in fact Western -- not including quasi-states like North Korea or Taiwan in that assessment). That doesn't say '"Where there was once optimism and openness, there is growing political repression": In continental Europe? I don't think so. Please provide concrete examples.' Certainly there is less than in the US due to the fact that free speech law binds the private sector as well as the public sector and that, in theory, discrimination on the basis of political or other opinion is forbidden. That being said, I watched protests during the Covid years treated differently depending on political views. In essence protests for in-favor causes were given go-aheads while protests for out-of-favor causes were restricted or banned. This may be changing now in Germany at least for the better. I don't like the far-right but when legal far-right parties are restricted in an ability to rally because political opponents to them blame the spread of Covid on them (overlooking more likely causes like cross-border commuting to a country with far higher problems), then I get nervous since usually I find myself, more often than not, fairly far left economically at least.

est 4y ago

> China’s leadership has made clear that they will prioritize unification and Party integrity over the economy and the well-being of their people. Even if China did conqure the land of Taiwan, it's difficult to support tens of millions of population to its pre-war living standards. Both mainland and taiwan had pension+aging population problems of their own. Conquest was the easy part, surviving the aftermath is difficult. Destroyed Taiwan economy, international boycott, etc.

miguelazo 4y ago

>“Oppression in China is real and effective.” Just imagine being black in the US.

physicles 4y ago

I've got some years in China. I speak Chinese, I'm eating a jianbing[1] as I write this. Didn't leave during the three years of zero covid. Reopening has changed everything about daily life in the best way. But I'm also looking for a way out. For the reasons outlined in the article, yes, and others. General sentiment toward foreigners has rebounded a bit since the early days of the pandemic, but it's pretty clear that the government would like all the Americans, Canadians and Brits to kindly GTFO. And everyone else seems to be leaving: I lost about half my friends in the last two years. My (privileged) problem is that I can't stomach the idea of moving back to the US. I moved here because I wanted to do something different with my life; the idea of living in the US again makes me feel like life would be over. Friends are moving to Singapore, Bangkok, Bali, Berlin, so I'll likely end up following them. Five years ago HK or Taipei might've been good options, but not these days. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jianbing_guozi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jianbing_guozi

galangalalgol 4y ago
Berlin as an option stands out both geographically and in cost of living. What makes it attractive despite that?
- TomK32 4y ago
  Culturally it has a lot of offer, vibrant scenes for any art or music taste and museums stuffed artifacts stolen from all around the globe[0] that might almost rival the British Museum. Also many musicians and artists have called it their temporary home, from Josephine Baker to David Bowie and his flat mate Iggy Pop[1]. Call it a litmus-test for how open a society is, even if you prefer complaining about the noise and waste the Love Parade (or rather Rave the Planet since last year) produces. On the wider geography, Germany itself is quite diverse, with a 90 minute train ride to Hamburg you will notice a difference in culture and into the south your just-acquired German skill will face challenges from many dialects. The city is also a great starting point to across the borders into the nine neighbouring countries we Germans have fought against and alongside at various points of history. Oh, and we Germans thing we have humour... [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/travel/museums-stolen-art.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/14/travel/museums-stolen-art... [1] https://www.iheartberlin.de/2016/01/26/famous-exiles-of-berlin-musicians/ https://www.iheartberlin.de/2016/01/26/famous-exiles-of-berl...

windowshopping 4y ago

This article got me wondering: what is the difference between an immigrant and an expat? It seems like immigrant is the term used for someone migrating westward, and expat is the term used for someone migrating from a Western country eastward. For the sake of this definition we're considering North America the western limit of the world and Asia the Eastern limit. Opinions?

pnt12 4y ago
Westerns needed a new word to disassociate them from migrants.

anovikov 4y ago

TL;DR: every dictatorship inevitably follows the same path of self-destruction. How many generations should pass for people worldwide to realise there is no viable path to long-term prosperity than a democratic social order?

lilod 4y ago

As a Chinese, it's really damn interesting to see people talking about China in the comments (no matter good or bad)

singularity2001 4y ago
Is HN accessible without VPN or do you live outside? PS: 很高兴认识你;)
- ospider 4y ago
  VPN is needed since ~2019.

textread 4y ago

Countries with the largest millionaire emigration: 1. Russia -15000 2. China -10000 3. India -8000 Countries with the largest millionaire immigration: 1. UAE +4000 2. Australia +3500 3. Singapore +2800 source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/millionaire-migration-2022_main.jpg https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/...

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago

Imagine if the ccp had dissolved itself, by becoming just the political framework, the shanghai clique, the traditionalists, becoming parties within the party and the legal system having a say in party inner affairs. Imagine all those who are trampled today by that caste system in china having a chance to shine. All those brilliance we will never see, cause it gets censored to dust by old bureaucrats could shine. 1 generation from now, china could have been culture wise something similar to japan or south korea. Instead we got this. The old errors, of walling oneself off from a percieved "hostile" outside world, of thinking one could be stand alone and the lack of seeing the need to change, to get away from the "conquer nature" mindset to a more symbiotic view of things. Its so sad. We had a glimpse, of what could be, but then it was back to the old imperial gameboard and the people turned back into figurines.

ospider 4y ago
Glimpse, that's all we can get for free. For the rest, we need to fight for it.

billychuck21st 4y ago

As a Chinese living outside China for the last 20 years, I was seriouly thinking about going back before the pandemic, but now that idea has gone for good, for reasons exactly like the article outlined.

gaoshan 4y ago

I've been in China, on and off, since 1996. Not living there full time but spending a month or two at a go. If I were to draw a graph of my own sense of optimism about where China was headed it would be a strong upward curve from the start up until a couple of years after the 2008 Olympics. By the time Xi took power in 2012 I was still thinking that he might be a positive influence. In many ways his early life, the political downfall and persecution of his father and Xi's own persecution during the Cultural Revolution had me primed to think that he might be a reformer. Someone that could possibly carry on in the footsteps of Deng Xiaopeng and really bring China across the finish line and into the world as a powerful and positive force for the planet at large. Instead the opposite happened. By 2013 what Xi was about was starting to come into focus. He carried out "anti-corruption" reforms but it didn't take long to see that these really just targeted his opponents (and the occasional ally that was worth making an example of... in Chinese 杀鸡给猴看 trans. kill the chicken to show the monkey). As crackdowns on China's fledgling independent media and various minorities intensified the curve on my chart dips and starts to dip hard. Now it is as low as it has ever been and heading downwards in freefall. I declined an opportunity to go back this Spring and part of me is very sad about this but China is headed to a dark place and I don't want to be there when it happens. Unfortunately when the time comes it will drag much of our world down with it, I fear.

steakscience 4y ago

The notion that the Chinese government became bad/evil only after Xi took power is comical