Emigration and Evictions

Two seemingly unrelated articles about Chinese cities appeared in the papers last week. Yesterday, South China Morning Post wrote about the fact that more and more of China’s upper class want to leave the country. They plan to emigrate to improve the education conditions of their children, to flee the shady air and food quality and to secure their properties.

Last week, the New York Times reported about a landgrab in Beijing. A five year old gated community at the fringe of the city has to make way for a road widening project. Its inhabitants are told to leave their houses within three weeks. Although shocking, this is a quite regular practice in China. However, it mostly happens to farmers in the countryside, or to people like the protagonist of our book, Mr Sun. The people in Beijing who have to leave their houses are doctors, accountants, retired government officials.

That is obviously the reason for the increase in emigration plans of the upper middle class. The Beijing case shows nobody can rely on the rule of law in China – neither a retired official, or mr Sun. The consequence is that the people who can afford it – in a lot of cases the country’s most talented people -  leave China thus creating a serious brain drain.

Mr Sun at Beijing International Book Fair Exhibition

How the City Moved to Mr Sun – China’s New Megacities is  part of an exhibition of Dutch books on art, architecture and design, in the Dutch Pavilion at the Book Fair. The 120+ books on display show the oeuvre of renowned artists, designers and architects from the Netherlands, and present the best of Dutch book design.

Coming weekend: 2x Go West lecture in Beijing!

Coming weekend we hold two lectures in Beijing.

On Saturday 26 February, 3pm, we present a preview of our book in M Capital, as part of the Literary Festival in Beijing. Tickets can be ordered online or at the door. Address: 3/F, No.2 Qianmen Pedestrian Street, Beijing. Entrance 65 RMB, one drink included.

On Sunday 27 February, 4pm, we present Go West research results in our lecture ‘Weapons of Mass Creation’ at Studio X, the Columbia University global network of advanced research laboratory. Address: A103, 46 Fangjia Hutong, Andingmen Inner Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing. Free entrance.

The influence of the state on the Chinese real estate market

Increasing influence of SOE’s on Chinese real estate market (source: New York Times)

Earlier this year, we posted an article by the Global Times reported the measures the Chinese government took on the increasing influence of State Owned Enterprises (SOE’s) on the real estate market. Today, the New York Times has a front page article on the growing influence of these SOE’s. The article is chrystal clear about the negative effects the SOE’s have on the real estate market:

By driving up property prices, the state-owned companies, which are ultimately controlled by the national government, are working at cross-purposes with the central government’s effort to keep China’s real estate boom from becoming a debt-driven speculative bubble

Figures proof a potential bubble, about which we reported earlier:

A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass., found that land prices in Beijing had jumped by about 750 percent since 2003, and that half of that gain came in the last two years. Housing prices have also skyrocketed, doubling in many cities over the last few years.

Read the full article here.