December 12, 2023 • 11 mins
China is facing the world's biggest exodus of millionaires and growing capital outflows. Yet at least one group is bucking the trend -- the growing number of ultrawealthy Chinese youth who are returning to the mainland.
Rising geopolitical tensions, and the perception of increasing hostility abroad toward Chinese nationals, have led children of some of China's richest people to eschew what used to be coveted overseas jobs and foreign citizenship, and recalibrate to a life at home where the mantra is “stay humble, stay quiet." Bloomberg's K. Oanh Ha and Selina Xu explain how we got here, and how it will affect US-China relations.
Read more: China’s Ultra-Rich Gen Zs Flock Home as Global Tensions Rise
Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily newsletter: https://bloom.bg/3F3EJAK
Have questions or comments for the team? Reach us at bigtake@bloomberg.net.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
For years, China's uber rich gen zs moved seamlessly between
the elite societies of the East and West.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
So in China people call them four dye, which is
second generation rich if you just translate it literally.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Selina Shu was Bloomberg's reporter for investing.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And these scions of the wealthy, these four Dyes, they're
educated in the West, they grew up all around the world.
They're fluent in multiple languages, and they moved very fluently
between communists China and Otho, the intellectual cradle off the West.
So when you combine all these factors together, you have
a very very small pool of very intelligent, cosmopolitan, open
(00:45):
minded young people with extremely abundant resources. So they're kind
of like the top one percent of the one percent.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
These kids of China's top one percent, the children of
casino mobiles, real estate tycoons, and billionaires. They have been
playing a prizing role in building goodwill and mutual trust
between China and the rest of the world. But lately,
something very different is happening with this group of young
and rich Chinese. They're leaving jobs and opportunities in the
(01:14):
US to come home to China.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
A lot of them are choosing to gravitate home, throw
their lots in with Beijing, even if it means sometimes
they have to navigate revus culture shock or deal with
the risk of perhaps sudden crackdowns on the affluent or
on sudden sectus in society.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
From Bloomberg, I'm wanha and this is the big take
today on the show Uber Rich. Young Chinese are returning
home and taking their family fortunes with them. Why and
how that's affecting US China relations. So when we're talking
(01:55):
about the gen zs of China, we're talking about people
who are mostly born between the late nineteen nineties and
through the early two thousands. It was a time when
US China relations were very different. Here's President George W.
Bush in two thousand and six. Is the issue of
the future in many ways is China, and I would
(02:16):
call our relationship with China very positive and complex.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
So those were the heydays of the US China relationship.
That was when the world was very open to globalization.
There was a lot of trade, a lot of people
to people.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Exchanges, Selina says. Because these young people grew up in
a time of openness between the two countries, they had
a unique opportunity to help strengthen the ties between the
US and China. One of the ways they did that
was on college campuses in the United States and one
school especially stood out.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So an example I think of this is the Hubboit
College China Forum. So for years like this forum has
kind of brought business mogul experts leaders of their field
to Harvard University and kind of brought them from both
the US China, rest of the world. And he had
all these people mixed together.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And gassing Zeno and shall all that dat.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So some of the past guests included people like Jack
Ma also legend from Salemi Blackstone's Stephen Schwartzman Bridgewater as
Ray Dalia, so really a kind of very very interesting
mix from both countries. They were mostly invited by a
very small group of student organizers, some of whom were
the children of Chinese billionaires or even government officials. So
(03:36):
the moneyed and the powerful between the world's two largest economies,
and they were hopped out together every April in person
and a very lively exchange of ideas. So that kind
of demonstrated Walf's power to bridge geopolitical rips.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
With this April, the stage of the Harvard China Forum
looked very.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Different in this year is Hobatt College China Farm. In
April twenty twenty three, only a handful of executives from
mainland China came in person to the forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Just a few years back, the ballroom at Harvard was
packed and it was an annual form that was not
to be missed by elite business leaders in the US
and China. And as for the wealthy students who historically
had helped make this forum possible.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think a lot of them are also choosing a
very different path that they're gravitating home instead of staying
in the US.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, And why is it that that they are going home?
I mean, are the tensions so bad that they feel
like they have to leave the US?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So Joe, political tensions is one factor. There's also the
uncertainty of the global economy. There's increased hostility abroad, increased
discrimination to US. A lot of Chinese nationals because of
some of the policy decisions that the Chinese government has
made during COVID and after. So if you look at
the number of Chinese students in US universities as of
(04:54):
January this year, as plummeted nearly thirty percent from twenty twenty,
So a lot of these Chinese students just don't want
to come to America anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
For China's part, the country has its arms wide open
to welcome these returnees. They're some of the best and
the brightest of this generation that are now just starting
their careers, and they're coming back with sought after overseas experience.
Even China state media have written about them in glowing reports.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
More Chinese students are coming back to China instead of
staying in the States.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
China's brain drain is getting reversed.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
We've also seen a huge talent deficit in China for
many of the high tech sectors that they're trying to pursue,
including obviously semiconductors, quantum computing, and other very high skilled
service sectors. So sea turtles, as what Chinese people call
these retorneyes, usually are able to offer some kind of
differentiation in scales that include stuff like more hands on
(05:52):
experiences and more global outlook our resources and connections to
people abroad.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
But it's not just about talent returning to help start
up businesses in important industries. A lot of these gen
zs are also bringing money their family fortunes back into
China after the break. How will the returning mega wealthy
impact China's economy, We'll hear from one These young and
(06:27):
rich Chinese are not just coming home to the mainland,
They're taking their money with them, and Selena says this
movement of capital flowing back to China could have big impact.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Chinese tycoons, you know, the ones who built some of
the world's biggest enterprises. As the nation open up to capitalism,
these people are sitting on almost one point one trillion
of cumulative wealth that they're as will likely control in
the future. So the majority of these people, these gen
zs are interested in entrepreneurship in China, are in investing
Vibe family offices, sometimes in the Greater Age Pacific region
(07:00):
in places like Singapore or Hong Kong, rather than in
the West.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
These wealthy gen zs, the top one percent of a
very exclusive club, are coming home with money and valued skills,
and they're bucking a trend at home. Many middle class
Chinese are concerned about China's economic future. They fear that
President Hijinping's common prosperity policy might take away the wealth
(07:26):
they've built. Many are moving with their money to places
like Australia and the United States. So the capital and
talent those uber rich gen zs are bringing back into
China comes at a critical time for the country.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah. So one example would be Alice Hoe. So she's
the youngest daughter of Stanley Ho, the casino Magnet and Macau.
So she has a very very cosmopolitan upbringing. She grew
up in Hong Kong, she went to boarding school in
the UK, she did High University and MIT, and then
later went to Shanghai Universe for the Stutsman Scholarship. So
(08:01):
she kind of kind of represents this very uh the
epitome kind of of the cosmopolitan not bringing these people
have I love to rich cultures, to cultures, region to
region and people to people and book.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
That's Alice Hoe speaking at a conference in Reat, Saudi
Arabia in October.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And she's chosen after graduation to live on the mainline
for the first time in her life. So she's based
in Beijing right now, and she is the chief youth
officer of this climate advocacy group called the Global Alliance
of Universities and Climate Allow Me to introduce the Climax
campaign where young people will come together. So you can
kind of see her flying around all over the world
(08:41):
to climate conferences, including COP twenty seven, and she's done
a lot of work in youth at vocacy. You know,
she doesn't talk about jee politics at all, so I
think for her, climate advocacy is something that rises above
geopolitical tensions.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So, Selena, we've now got these young, super rich Chinese
coming back to the main life, even before they've started
careers in the US. What are the consequences of that?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
The world's getting first and foremost more estranged to China,
a lot less contact and understanding compared to previous generations. Ironically,
even though you know now travel globalization is obviously more advanced.
And secondly, I think and a more important impact is
that Chinese have a more negative image of America, especially
(09:29):
young Chinese, with the notable exception of Chinese students who've
actually studied abroad America, so everyone else generally has more
anti American stands. And that's really worrying because on the
American side, with few and a few Chinese students studying
there and deciding to live there and take their roots
there you kind of see a growing lack of understanding,
and that's going to be a huge issue for how
(09:49):
Chinese society is going to function and what kind of
domestic reactions they have to geopolitics globally.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Selena, I like to pull the lens back a little bit. Now,
there was a time when interest in China among American
students was really high. The Chinese government even funded more
than one hundred of these Confucius institutes at US universities
to teach Mandarin and Chinese culture, and nearly all of
those institutes have now closed. Are we also seeing waning
(10:16):
interest of China in the US.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Unfortunately we are. So it's quite concerning because this trend
is not just happening, you know, in the US, but
also in China. So as a bilateral pattern. Years ago,
you could see people in America wanting to learn Chinese.
You know, there are a lot of people traveling to China,
moving to China, doing a grad trip in China after college.
I haven't worked there permanently. So they have helped to
(10:39):
bridge the two nations just as much as their Chinese
counterparts have. But now the numbers are really just dwindling.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
A decade ago, there were nearly fifteen thousand US students
in China. Today there are only three hundred and fifty
those numbers from the State Department. It's like a ninety
eight percent.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Draw, and that could make it tough to train the
next generation of diplomat.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
We need to have the next generation of China experts
for our entire government, and of course, the declining number
of American students in China makes the US something of
a black box to many ordinary Chinese too. Exactly, that's
(11:33):
it for today's show. This episode was produced by Young Young.
Blake Maples is our sound engineer. Caitlin Kenny is our editor.
Thanks to Marufo Hossein for production help. Sage Bauman is
Bloomberg's head of podcast. Thanks for listening.
For years, China's uber rich gen zs moved seamlessly between
the elite societies of the East and West.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
So in China people call them four dye, which is
second generation rich if you just translate it literally.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Selina Shu was Bloomberg's reporter for investing.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And these scions of the wealthy, these four Dyes, they're
educated in the West, they grew up all around the world.
They're fluent in multiple languages, and they moved very fluently
between communists China and Otho, the intellectual cradle off the West.
So when you combine all these factors together, you have
a very very small pool of very intelligent, cosmopolitan, open
(00:45):
minded young people with extremely abundant resources. So they're kind
of like the top one percent of the one percent.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
These kids of China's top one percent, the children of
casino mobiles, real estate tycoons, and billionaires. They have been
playing a prizing role in building goodwill and mutual trust
between China and the rest of the world. But lately,
something very different is happening with this group of young
and rich Chinese. They're leaving jobs and opportunities in the
(01:14):
US to come home to China.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
A lot of them are choosing to gravitate home, throw
their lots in with Beijing, even if it means sometimes
they have to navigate revus culture shock or deal with
the risk of perhaps sudden crackdowns on the affluent or
on sudden sectus in society.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
From Bloomberg, I'm wanha and this is the big take
today on the show Uber Rich. Young Chinese are returning
home and taking their family fortunes with them. Why and
how that's affecting US China relations. So when we're talking
(01:55):
about the gen zs of China, we're talking about people
who are mostly born between the late nineteen nineties and
through the early two thousands. It was a time when
US China relations were very different. Here's President George W.
Bush in two thousand and six. Is the issue of
the future in many ways is China, and I would
(02:16):
call our relationship with China very positive and complex.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
So those were the heydays of the US China relationship.
That was when the world was very open to globalization.
There was a lot of trade, a lot of people
to people.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Exchanges, Selina says. Because these young people grew up in
a time of openness between the two countries, they had
a unique opportunity to help strengthen the ties between the
US and China. One of the ways they did that
was on college campuses in the United States and one
school especially stood out.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So an example I think of this is the Hubboit
College China Forum. So for years like this forum has
kind of brought business mogul experts leaders of their field
to Harvard University and kind of brought them from both
the US China, rest of the world. And he had
all these people mixed together.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And gassing Zeno and shall all that dat.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So some of the past guests included people like Jack
Ma also legend from Salemi Blackstone's Stephen Schwartzman Bridgewater as
Ray Dalia, so really a kind of very very interesting
mix from both countries. They were mostly invited by a
very small group of student organizers, some of whom were
the children of Chinese billionaires or even government officials. So
(03:36):
the moneyed and the powerful between the world's two largest economies,
and they were hopped out together every April in person
and a very lively exchange of ideas. So that kind
of demonstrated Walf's power to bridge geopolitical rips.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
With this April, the stage of the Harvard China Forum
looked very.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Different in this year is Hobatt College China Farm. In
April twenty twenty three, only a handful of executives from
mainland China came in person to the forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Just a few years back, the ballroom at Harvard was
packed and it was an annual form that was not
to be missed by elite business leaders in the US
and China. And as for the wealthy students who historically
had helped make this forum possible.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think a lot of them are also choosing a
very different path that they're gravitating home instead of staying
in the US.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, And why is it that that they are going home?
I mean, are the tensions so bad that they feel
like they have to leave the US?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So Joe, political tensions is one factor. There's also the
uncertainty of the global economy. There's increased hostility abroad, increased
discrimination to US. A lot of Chinese nationals because of
some of the policy decisions that the Chinese government has
made during COVID and after. So if you look at
the number of Chinese students in US universities as of
(04:54):
January this year, as plummeted nearly thirty percent from twenty twenty,
So a lot of these Chinese students just don't want
to come to America anymore.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
For China's part, the country has its arms wide open
to welcome these returnees. They're some of the best and
the brightest of this generation that are now just starting
their careers, and they're coming back with sought after overseas experience.
Even China state media have written about them in glowing reports.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
More Chinese students are coming back to China instead of
staying in the States.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
China's brain drain is getting reversed.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
We've also seen a huge talent deficit in China for
many of the high tech sectors that they're trying to pursue,
including obviously semiconductors, quantum computing, and other very high skilled
service sectors. So sea turtles, as what Chinese people call
these retorneyes, usually are able to offer some kind of
differentiation in scales that include stuff like more hands on
(05:52):
experiences and more global outlook our resources and connections to
people abroad.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
But it's not just about talent returning to help start
up businesses in important industries. A lot of these gen
zs are also bringing money their family fortunes back into
China after the break. How will the returning mega wealthy
impact China's economy, We'll hear from one These young and
(06:27):
rich Chinese are not just coming home to the mainland,
They're taking their money with them, and Selena says this
movement of capital flowing back to China could have big impact.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Chinese tycoons, you know, the ones who built some of
the world's biggest enterprises. As the nation open up to capitalism,
these people are sitting on almost one point one trillion
of cumulative wealth that they're as will likely control in
the future. So the majority of these people, these gen
zs are interested in entrepreneurship in China, are in investing
Vibe family offices, sometimes in the Greater Age Pacific region
(07:00):
in places like Singapore or Hong Kong, rather than in
the West.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
These wealthy gen zs, the top one percent of a
very exclusive club, are coming home with money and valued skills,
and they're bucking a trend at home. Many middle class
Chinese are concerned about China's economic future. They fear that
President Hijinping's common prosperity policy might take away the wealth
(07:26):
they've built. Many are moving with their money to places
like Australia and the United States. So the capital and
talent those uber rich gen zs are bringing back into
China comes at a critical time for the country.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah. So one example would be Alice Hoe. So she's
the youngest daughter of Stanley Ho, the casino Magnet and Macau.
So she has a very very cosmopolitan upbringing. She grew
up in Hong Kong, she went to boarding school in
the UK, she did High University and MIT, and then
later went to Shanghai Universe for the Stutsman Scholarship. So
(08:01):
she kind of kind of represents this very uh the
epitome kind of of the cosmopolitan not bringing these people
have I love to rich cultures, to cultures, region to
region and people to people and book.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
That's Alice Hoe speaking at a conference in Reat, Saudi
Arabia in October.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And she's chosen after graduation to live on the mainline
for the first time in her life. So she's based
in Beijing right now, and she is the chief youth
officer of this climate advocacy group called the Global Alliance
of Universities and Climate Allow Me to introduce the Climax
campaign where young people will come together. So you can
kind of see her flying around all over the world
(08:41):
to climate conferences, including COP twenty seven, and she's done
a lot of work in youth at vocacy. You know,
she doesn't talk about jee politics at all, so I
think for her, climate advocacy is something that rises above
geopolitical tensions.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So, Selena, we've now got these young, super rich Chinese
coming back to the main life, even before they've started
careers in the US. What are the consequences of that?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
The world's getting first and foremost more estranged to China,
a lot less contact and understanding compared to previous generations. Ironically,
even though you know now travel globalization is obviously more advanced.
And secondly, I think and a more important impact is
that Chinese have a more negative image of America, especially
(09:29):
young Chinese, with the notable exception of Chinese students who've
actually studied abroad America, so everyone else generally has more
anti American stands. And that's really worrying because on the
American side, with few and a few Chinese students studying
there and deciding to live there and take their roots
there you kind of see a growing lack of understanding,
and that's going to be a huge issue for how
(09:49):
Chinese society is going to function and what kind of
domestic reactions they have to geopolitics globally.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Selena, I like to pull the lens back a little bit. Now,
there was a time when interest in China among American
students was really high. The Chinese government even funded more
than one hundred of these Confucius institutes at US universities
to teach Mandarin and Chinese culture, and nearly all of
those institutes have now closed. Are we also seeing waning
(10:16):
interest of China in the US.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Unfortunately we are. So it's quite concerning because this trend
is not just happening, you know, in the US, but
also in China. So as a bilateral pattern. Years ago,
you could see people in America wanting to learn Chinese.
You know, there are a lot of people traveling to China,
moving to China, doing a grad trip in China after college.
I haven't worked there permanently. So they have helped to
(10:39):
bridge the two nations just as much as their Chinese
counterparts have. But now the numbers are really just dwindling.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
A decade ago, there were nearly fifteen thousand US students
in China. Today there are only three hundred and fifty
those numbers from the State Department. It's like a ninety
eight percent.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Draw, and that could make it tough to train the
next generation of diplomat.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
We need to have the next generation of China experts
for our entire government, and of course, the declining number
of American students in China makes the US something of
a black box to many ordinary Chinese too. Exactly, that's
(11:33):
it for today's show. This episode was produced by Young Young.
Blake Maples is our sound engineer. Caitlin Kenny is our editor.
Thanks to Marufo Hossein for production help. Sage Bauman is
Bloomberg's head of podcast. Thanks for listening.
Hosts And Creators
Sarah Holder
Saleha Mohsin
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.