Good Sign

I’ve always wondered about how China handles Communism. In Western nations the people eventually revolt when they realize they live in poverty and squalor, while the rest of the world (and the leaders of their own nation) live in relative luxury. Still the Chinese people have some cultural affectations that seem to make them not question it. I’ve worked with a ton of Chinese nationals who have come here for education and/or work, but dream of making their fortunes here and moving back to China.

Still Mrs. Weer’d sends me this story:

Like hundreds of thousands of Chinese who leave each year, she was driven by an overriding sense that she could do better outside China. Despite China’s tremendous economic successes in recent years, she was lured by Australia’s healthier environment, robust social services and the freedom to start a family in a country that guarantees religious freedoms.

“It’s very stressful in China — sometimes I was working 128 hours a week for my auditing company,” Ms. Chen said in her Beijing apartment a few hours before leaving. “And it will be easier raising my children as Christians abroad. It is more free in Australia.”

As China’s Communist Party prepares a momentous leadership change in early November, it is losing skilled professionals like Ms. Chen in record numbers. In 2010, the last year for which complete statistics are available, 508,000 Chinese left for the 34 developed countries that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That is a 45 percent increase over 2000.

Interesting that the Social Services of the “European Socialist” Australia offers more benefits than the full-on Communist China. Of course when we talk about social services here in the US its really only the poor that lack (and even then they have cars, TVs, homes, and cellphones).

Maybe they’re finally abandoning the sinking ship…