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Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

economist.com

21–30 of 135 posts

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#21
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Thiel is a crook who conned the New Zealand government into giving him citizenship and then never showed up in the way he said he would. He has no credibility when it comes to immigration. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-...

Not that I agree or disagree, but that is simply an ad hominem attack.

[deleted]

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#22
The reasons for this are obvious:

1. Money laundering i.e. How can Chinese government officials embezzle tax money and keep it? Buy real estate overseas and have your family live in them.

2. Tax evasion. Buy real estate overseas and have your family live in them.

The education angle makes sense, but imo it's not the main reason.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#23
The dumb thing is how cheap these go for. If you had to pay 500k for a passport it would make sense.

Investing 500k costs very little. You'll likely make more money than if you bought Chinese real estate. Even if you have to borrow 500k its only going to cost you ~10-20k a year.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#24
post #2

This has always been a common theme in Asia/South East Asia and is nothing new. The biggest barriers are: 1. Money/Income 2. Language. 3. Education. You can't fit in if you don't know the language, or literate. That's what makes Student visas so valuable, because it can give an anchor to an family to move abroad. Education, you can't survive abroad w/o income and this is usually hand in hand w/ a degree. Money, well,…

> You can't fit in if you don't know the language or literature

I would invite you to visit Richmond BC which happens to be majority Asian (on top of my head 72% +) and majority of that Chinese. A Chinese national moving to Richmond would not struggle too much without English language.

Why did you mention literature at all?

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#25

Peter Thiel wrote about it back in 2014 in his book, Zero to One. We have a different image of China and China has done a great job posing as next superpower but the reality is very different on the ground. Rich Chinese want to get away from China by paying whatever price they can afford, this is not surprising at all!

China really is the next superpower AND some Chinese are interested in having a lily pad outside China that they can hop to. No conflict between these. Lots of Americans have second passports, including Peter Thiel.

A nuance here is that China's nationality laws forbid dual-citizenship and border officials have been (anecdotally) cracking down on it in recent years. There are a lot of grey areas in enforcement, and I'm not sure how it would play out for the rich and powerful, but the general idea is that once you get a second passport, the first one ceases to exist, along with one's hukou, right to property and capital, etc.

Thus, as with other countries that don't allow dual citizenship (e.g., Japan, India, Austria, Malaysia, Singapore) getting another nationality is probably a stronger exit signal.

Of course, most schemes start by giving permanent residency, which is different and sort of the best of both worlds.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#26

Peter Thiel wrote about it back in 2014 in his book, Zero to One. We have a different image of China and China has done a great job posing as next superpower but the reality is very different on the ground. Rich Chinese want to get away from China by paying whatever price they can afford, this is not surprising at all!

China really is the next superpower AND some Chinese are interested in having a lily pad outside China that they can hop to. No conflict between these. Lots of Americans have second passports, including Peter Thiel.

Agreed.

It's also an easy vector for foreign states to become 'addicted' to investment money generated from their industrial base and I.P. 'borrowing.'

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#27
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Thiel is a crook who conned the New Zealand government into giving him citizenship and then never showed up in the way he said he would. He has no credibility when it comes to immigration. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-...

Not that I agree or disagree, but that is simply an ad hominem attack.

I’m not sure ad hominem applies, since it isn’t trying to discredit his argument by nature of his background.

The comment is definitely off topic and doesn’t add anything to the discussion, however.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#28
post #16

One solution to this is to improve the visa situations for Chinese nationals. If it weren’t such a pain to travel to western countries with a chinese passport there may be less demand for these foreign residency schemes.

That isn’t really why they get residency, it’s more of a hedge on the Chinese government, you never know when it will come down on you for a good or bad reason.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#29
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My belief has always been foreign capital (speculation) is bad, but immigration is good. So if you want to move here and bring all that foreign capital great! If you want to speculate or park money in Canadian real estate (empty houses and condos) that's really bad for the locals. It never should have been allowed.

The reason why the Feds ended their version of an investor immigration scheme is because a study found that refugees ended up paying more in income taxes than investor immigrants lmao. So yeah immigrants are great, but it has been abundantly clear that the rich persons buying citizenship are doing so just to have a passport of convenience and buy land as a safe investment and the gains for the rest of Canadian societ…

>a study found that refugees ended up paying more in income taxes than investor immigrants

Citation?

I mean, presumably there's a citable study out there somewhere.

That immigrants in general pay in more taxes sounds plausible. That refugees are a greater net positive (taxes in minus benefits out) than investors, who are basically all wealthy enough to use minimal government services, seems like a stretch.

Re: Chinese are big customers for schemes selling foreign residency

#30
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My belief has always been foreign capital (speculation) is bad, but immigration is good. So if you want to move here and bring all that foreign capital great! If you want to speculate or park money in Canadian real estate (empty houses and condos) that's really bad for the locals. It never should have been allowed.

The reason why the Feds ended their version of an investor immigration scheme is because a study found that refugees ended up paying more in income taxes than investor immigrants lmao. So yeah immigrants are great, but it has been abundantly clear that the rich persons buying citizenship are doing so just to have a passport of convenience and buy land as a safe investment and the gains for the rest of Canadian societ…

Sounds like a good reason to soak all the rich, not just the foreign rich.
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