Voting with Their Feet: Children of Senior CCP Officials Choose to Live Abroad Voice of America

WASHINGTON – A recent article by an outspoken Chinese sociologist has gone viral on Beijing’s tightly-controlled social media, sparking debates about China’s privileged class children choosing to live abroad.

Zheng Yefu, a retired sociology professor at China’s prestigious Peking University, wrote that although the Chinese Communist Party maintains its grip on power in order to better serve the ruling elite, their children are choosing to vote with their feet , by taking permanent residence in Western countries.

It is not known exactly how many children of Chinese Communist Party leaders choose to live abroad, but there have been several high-profile children who have sought degrees at leading American universities.

Chinese President Xi Jinpings’ only daughter, Xi Mingze, was educated at Harvard. Two of the last three top executives, former president Zhao Ziyang and Jiang Zemin, had grandchildren who attended Harvard. Jia Qinglin, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s highest governing body, had a granddaughter at Stanford. The now disgraced former Chongqing party star Bo Xilai is the father of Bo Guagua, who had attended the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

the Washington post reported that at least five of the nine members of the last Politburo standing committee have children or grandchildren who studied in the United States.

The Washington based Institute for Migration Policy noted in a report that the affluent and educated elites are the main driving force behind emigration from China to the United States

According to a report by the China-based Wealth Research Company Hurun Research Institute, more than a third of China’s wealthy are currently considering emigrating to another country, for better education systems elsewhere and to flee polluted cities and the country’s strict government, while protecting their wealth.

Vote with their feet

Zheng Yefu, a longtime critic of Communist Party policies, wrote that China has spent billions of dollars to maintain stability, in order to save the country created by the great Communist Party.

Zheng argued that the main focus of the effort is to protect the country’s privileged class and pass these economic and political benefits on to their children.

Yet, he noted, the children of a number of Communist Party leaders seem indifferent to inheriting political power from their parents. They voted with their feet and settled in Western countries, especially the United States

They don’t like power, they like America, Zheng concluded.

He pointed out that there were several reasons for this change of mind on the part of their fathers and grandfathers, including a deterioration of the environment for freedom of speech and movement, and a general dissatisfaction with the ‘regard to the way in which previous generations seized and retained power.

He also noted that after China opened in 1978, people were able to travel abroad more freely. Benefiting from this policy, some of these elites decide to stay in Western countries after comparing the two lifestyles.

‘They can’t change China’

Chinese observer Zan Aizong told VOA that one of the reasons these elites decide to migrate is because they feel they have no way of changing China.

If China has democracy, constitution, rule of law, human rights, and universal value, then although there are problems, it could stay and try to solve it. But if they don’t see any way to change the current status, they would just give up. Vote with their feet, Zan told VOA.

Human rights activist Hu Jia said there was another reason: if they choose to stay and fight for their positions in the party, there are huge risks.

For second or third generation reds, if you lose in the power struggle, you’re going to lose everything. Compare that to your chance to live a peaceful life in a free and democratic environment, he said. So for some, they choose to stay away from the mess.