Liu Qin
China Dialogue
February 10, 2014
Rich emigrants cite pollution and water safety as reasons for leaving China, but should they pay an environmental tax before leaving?
Environmental problems have become an important factor causing the rich to leave China, according to a recent report. The Global Talent Blue Book: Chinese International Migration 2014, recently published by the Social Sciences Academic Press, found that over the last year worsening environmental problems such as air pollution and food and water safety have become an important factor in people’s decisions to leave China. The report refers to a 2013 survey by New Fortune magazine, which found environmental and healthcare factors were the second most important consideration in emigration decisions, with almost 70% of respondents citing these as major reasons.
Wang Huiyao, editor of the report and director of the think tank Center for China and Globalisation, describes the difference in numbers between those leaving and moving to China as an “emigration deficit”. He thinks air pollution is contributing to this deficit, and has called for China to set up an immigration bureau to attract global talent.
While some are migrating overseas, others are becoming internal migrants. Some members of the middle class, fed up with the crowding and air pollution of the big cities, are fleeing to: smaller and more pleasant cities like Dali in Yunnan, Sanya on Hainan province, Weihai in Shandong province, or Zhuhai in Guangdong province.
Zhang Xiaode, head of the Chinese Academy of Governance’s Institute of Ecological Civilisation, said that China’s smog problems were calling into doubt the common view that urban life is preferable. In the next five to eight years, he thinks, China will see a reversal of urbanisation, with city residents heading for rural areas.
Controversially, one academic is now suggesting citizens leaving China should pay a environmental levy.
Chen Guoen, a professor at Wuhan University, said that some Western investment-for-citizenship schemes are tempting China’s rich to emigrate and enjoy cleaner air. According to Chen, China should respond by imposing an environmental restoration levy on those leaving – their accumulation of wealth will have had environmental consequences, and they should not be allowed to take that money and run.
