Chinese people in New York: 508,000 people emigrated from mainland China to OEDC nations in 2010. Photo by venetia koussia via Flickr.

No-one can have missed the growing numbers of Chinese in the UK. It is a well-documented fact and part of a global trend; a total of 508,000 people emigrated from mainland China to OECD nations in 2010, the majority to English-speaking countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia. The above figure is a 45% increase from 2000, meaning this colossal migration could be just beginning.

The Hurun Report, a Chinese “luxury publishing and events group”, conducted a survey of Chinese millionaires in 2011. It found that that 14% of respondents had either moved abroad or were currently doing so and 46% were actively considering it. Yet it is not just the super-rich who are looking to greener pastures. A recent article on the Chinese web portal Netease discussed the reasons why many Chinese are leaving. Among the reasons stated were concerns with air quality and frustrations with the unpredictable political environment. In the comments section 51,270 people had ‘liked’ a post declaring, “If you want to move abroad, ding (like) this comment!”. A survey on Canadian immigration commissioned by the Historica-Dominion Institute found that, if given the opportunity, two thirds of all mainland Chinese respondents would immigrate to Canada.

General conceptions

It would of course be a mistake to view all Chinese people as the same. To do so would be to ignore the myriad of different motivations, dreams, persuasions, passions and purposes that brought them here as students, workers, parents, and so on. Some have long dreamed of living here, others are here by accident. Some have been here days, other decades.

Song Chao is a student studying Japanese at Oxford. Language acquisition has been one of his primary motivations for ventures outside of China. More generally, he appreciates the better living standards and higher wages in the UK. The fact that many Chinese choose to live abroad is part of a trend, he suggests: the more who go, the more who want to go. Many feel that going abroad, gaining citizenship and purchasing accommodation, are in a way long-term investments. Other factors, such as issues with the environment and the current political atmosphere, could also be influencing the move. In contrast, the student population, including Song Chao, are generally here to “get some experience, grab a diploma”, and head home. Job prospects in China are certainly not gloomy, and life in a country that is transforming at speed is not without its benefits. “Although China’s salaries and per capita GDP might not be a little lower than other countries, development is still happening pretty fast. There’s this feeling that everything is moving fast every day.”

Susan Rice is currently job hunting in London after studying a master’s degree in Edinburgh. For her, living in the UK means access to vital work experience, an opportunity to improve her English, and a uniquely “multi-cultural work environment”. She says that in the UK, “the issue of overworking is less serious than in China. My friends who are working in China are overworked without actual pay.” Nevertheless, Susan and many others like her are not planning to stay here in the long term, her short time in the UK is intrinsically linked with a future in China, because “if we can get some overseas experience, we’ll get a better salary after we go back to China – we have a stronger job application”. Opportunities in a developing China are plentiful, and any who wish to stay beyond their time of study must contend with the ever-more stringent UK immigration policy.

The Generation Gap

The Globalist talked to Mrs Wu, a married of mother of two who came over to the UK from China 20 years ago. Her generation went abroad for higher education, to learn some skills, get some experience and return. She had not anticipated spending such a long time in the UK, but as her children first went to nursery school, and then to primary school, she fretted they would “find it more and more difficult to get back to the main education stream in China”. Several years ago, her family moved to Hong Kong, hoping it would provide a good transition point between the UK and mainland China. However, she found it hard to cope with the “materialistic environment after having grown older and become a committed Christian” in the UK. She was concerned for her children since “everyone’s talking about nothing else but money”, and soon yearned for the simpler life in an English country village. “The moral environment here, especially in a village…we found it easier to live here than we did living abroad – that’s just our view.”

Runli is in a similar position to Mrs Wu.  She also immigrated to the west on a higher education scholarship 20 years ago. She has since married an Englishman and had two children. She explained that the new wave of Chinese are coming over having reached the peak of Chinese society and looking for more. Having made their millions profiting from China’s gigantic growth, they are at the “top of their game and have nothing better to do”. The next logical step is to immigrate to more developed nations, in itself another kind of investment. Considerations of their children’s education and a cleaner environment were also of importance, she said.

A short look at the lives of some Chinese living in the UK shows they are, as a group, anything but monolithic. Some have chosen this as their home, others are riding the vast conveyor belt of British higher education. The majority are here to get some qualifications and experience before returning to struggle in China’s highly competitive job markets. They are for a short time, part of a much larger cultural exchange that is going both ways. We may not be seeing Britons clamouring to attain Chinese citizenship (yet), but an ever-growing number of UK students head to China every year for language study, internships or simply travel.