Social anxieties force new Chinese elite to foreign shores

• Source: Global Times
• [22:00 July 20 2010]
• Comments

Right now in China, buying a house destroys a young couple, funding a student destroys his parents, and a serious illness destroys life savings. This is the reality of life even for the urban middle classes at the moment.

Finally, there is the desire for functioning institutions, and in particular a legal system that treats all players fairly.

Western countries built legal systems earlier than China, and the spirit of the rule of law is more accepted.

China is in a transitional period at the moment between a power and interest driven legal system and a genuinely impartial system where all are equal before the law. Then there's constant presence of bureaucracy and officialdom in China, which often intrudes into everyday life in a way that isn't the case in the West.

What all of these motivations share is a feeling of insecurity.

This is the biggest factor driving the elite away from China - they simply don't feel that they can hold on to what they have safely.

There is also the increasingly eat-or-be-eaten nature of Chinese business, which has little toleration for failure or hesitation.

This sense of insecurity and anxiety reduces citizens' sense of pride in their country, and makes emigration a plausible option.

We shouldn't blame those who chose to leave, but look at why they do so.

Only by building a stable and secure society at home can we prevent people from seizing the chance to find a safer life in a foreign land.

The author is a Beijing-based journalist. forum@ globaltimes. com.cn