Hostname: page-component-55f67697df-xlmdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-05-12T10:36:51.971Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Migration as Class-based Consumption: The Emigration of the Rich in Contemporary China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2016

Gracia Liu-Farrer
Gracia Liu-Farrer*
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo. Email: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Labelled as the third wave of migration out of post-reform China, the recent emigration of wealthy Chinese has attracted worldwide attention. Although this form of mobility involves primarily the richest 0.1 per cent of the Chinese population, the high profile of the people who move and the amount of wealth implied have made it a sensational social phenomenon. Through interviews, participant observation and media reports, this paper searches for the social meanings of this trend of emigration. Journalists generally attribute the exodus of the rich to a desire to secure their wealth, an aspiration for a different education for their children, or concerns with air pollution and food safety. What this paper argues is that underneath these stated motivations, emigration is in fact a form of class-based consumption, a strategy for class reproduction, and a way to convert economic resources into social status and prestige. “Emigration” (yimin), a form of mobility that may not entail settling abroad, is a path created by wealthy Chinese striving to be among the global elite.

摘要

近年中国富裕阶层纷纷移民国外, 在中国被称为改革开放后的 “第三次移民潮”。虽然能够走投资移民这条路线的人口仅是中国最富有的千分之一, 他们的经济地位和可携走财富使此移民现象不仅震动中国社会, 也在全世界受到瞩目。本篇论文通过个人访谈, 参与观察及媒体报道, 试图深层次分析这次移民潮的社会含义。中外媒体一般认为中国富人大量出国或是为了保证自己的财产安全, 或是为孩子教育考虑, 也或是出于对中国空气污染, 食品安全之类生活环境的忧虑。虽然这些因素确有存在, 本文认为, 富人移民实质上是一种阶层性消费, 一种社会阶层再生产的手段, 也是一种把经济资源转化为社会地位和身份威望的方式。 “移民”, 对于当代中国富人来说, 并不意味着移居国外, 更是一条通向全球精英行列的途径。

Keywords

wealthy Chinesemigrationclass in Chinastatus consumptiontuhaoelite中国富裕层移民中国社会阶层地位消费; 土豪精英
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 226 , June 2016 , pp. 499 - 518
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bank of China and Hurun Report. 2011. “Zhongguo siren caifu guanli baipishu” (Private banking white paper), http://pic.bankofchina.com/bocappd/report/201111/P020111104360888560054.pdf.Google Scholar
Bauman, Zygmunt. 1998. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Benson, Michael, and O'Reilly, Kerin. 2009. “Migration and the search for a better way of life: a critical exploration of lifestyle migration.” The Sociological Review 57(4), 608–625.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bian, Yanjie. 2002. “Chinese social stratification and social mobility.” Annual Review of Sociology 22, 91–116.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cheng Qijun, . 2010. “Jiecengjian fengbixing qianghua: Zhongguo shehui jieceng liudongde xinqushi” (More closed classes: a new trend of social strata flow in China). Xueshu jiaoliu 2010(1), 119–122.Google Scholar
Chu, Julie. 2010. Cosmologies of Credit: Transnational Mobility and the Politics of Destination in China. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Fong, Vanessa L. 2011. Paradise Redefined: Transnational Chinese Students and the Quest for Flexible Citizenship in the Developed World. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1951. “Symbols of class status.” The British Journal of Sociology 2(4), 294–304.Google Scholar
Huber, Andreas, and O'Reilly, Karen. 2004. “The construction of Heimat under conditions of individualized modernity: Swiss and British elderly migrants in Spain.” Ageing and Society 24(3), 327–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurun Report. 2014. “Zhishang youpin – Zhongguo qianwanfuhao pinpai qingxiang baogao” (2014 Hurun Report on Chinese luxury consumer survey), http://www.hurun.net/CN/ArticleShow.aspx?nid=261. Accessed 23 February 2015.Google Scholar
Hurun Report and Visas Consulting Group. 2014. “Zhongguo touzi yimin baipishu” (Chinese investment migration white paper), retrieved from http://up.hurun.net/Humaz/201406/20140606132055085.pdf. Accessed 25 February 2015.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Vincent, Bergman, Manfred Max and Joye, Dominique. 2004. “Motility: mobility as capital.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28(4), 745–756.Google Scholar
King, Russell, Warnes, Tony and Williams, Allan M.. 2000. Sunset Lives: British Retirement Migration to the Mediterranean. Oxford: Berg Publishers.Google Scholar
Ley, David. 2011. Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Li, Chunlin. 2011. “Zhongchan jieji de xiaofei shuiping he xiaofei fangshi” (Levels and styles of consumption among Chinese middle class). Guangdong shehui kexue 2011(4), 210–18.Google Scholar
Li, Lulu. 2002. “Zhidu zhuanxing yu fencengjiegou de bianqian – jieceng xiangdui guanxi moshide ‘shuangchong zaishengchan’” (Institutional transformation and changes in stratification structure – continued reproduction of the pattern of relative relations among social strata). Zhongguo shehui kexue 6, 105–118.Google Scholar
Li, Peilin. 2005. “Shehui chongtu he jieji yishi: dangdai Zhongguo shehui maodun yanjiu” (Social conflicts and class consciousness: study of conflict in contemporary China). Shehui 239, 7–27.Google Scholar
Li, Peilin, and Yi, Zhang. 2008. “Zhongguo zhongchan jieji de guimo, rentong he shehui taidu” (The scope, identity and social attitudes of the middle class in China). Shehui 2008(2), 1–19.Google Scholar
Li, Peter S. 2005. “The rise and fall of Chinese immigration to Canada: newcomers from Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China and mainland China, 1980–2002.” International Migration 43(3), 9–34.Google Scholar
Massey, D., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A. and Taylor, J.. 1993. “Theories of international migration: a review and appraisal.” Population and Development Review 19(3), 431–466.Google Scholar
Ong, Aiwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
O'Reilly, Karen. 2000. The British on the Costa del Sol: Transnational Identities and Local Communities. London: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Osburg, John. 2013. Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality among China's New Rich. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Skeldon, Ronald (ed.). 1994. Reluctant Exiles?: Migration from Hong Kong and the New Overseas Chinese (Vol. 5). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Song, Geng, and Hird, Derek. 2013. Men and Masculinities in Contemporary China. Amsterdam: Brill.Google Scholar
Urry, John. 2007. Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Veblen, T. 1994[1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew G. 1995. “Career mobility and the communist political order.” Amercan Sociological Review 60, 309–328.Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew G., Li, Bobai and Treiman, Donald J.. 2000. “Politics and life chances in a state socialist regime: dual career paths into the urban Chinese elite, 1949 to 1996.” American Sociological Review 65, 191–209.Google Scholar
Wang, Huiyao, and Guofu, Liu. 2012. Zhongguo guoji yimin baogao (Annual Report on Chinese International Migration). Beijing: Social Science Academic Press.Google Scholar
Waters, Johanna L. 2008. Education, Migration, and Cultural Capital in the Chinese Diaspora. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press.Google Scholar
Yan, Yunxiang. 2011. “The changing moral landscape.” In Kleinman, Arthur et al. (eds.), Deep China: The Moral Life of the Person. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 36–77.Google Scholar
Tan, Ye. 2010. “Sanda zhejia bichu yiminchao” (Three types of discounts induce migration wave), 16 October, http://view.news.qq.com/a/20111016/000007.htm. Accessed 25 February 2015.Google Scholar
Zhang, Le, and Yi, Zhang. 2012. “Jingying jieceng zaishengchan yu jieceng guhua Chengdu: yi qingnian de zhiye diwei huode wei li” (Elite reproduction and class solidification in urban China: taking the status acquisition of young elites as an example). Qingnian yanjiu 382(1), 1–12.Google Scholar
Zhang, Li. 2012. In Search of Paradise: Middle-class Living in a Chinese Metropolis. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, Xiulin, and Can, Zhang. 2014. “Shanghai qingnian zhongchan jieceng de shechipin xiaofei yanjiu” (A study of the luxury consumption among Shanghai middleclass youth in Shanghai). Qingnian yanjiu 5(2014), 42–49.Google Scholar
Zheng, Hui, and Lulu, Li. 2009. “Zhongguo chengshi de jingying daiji zhunhua yu jieceng zaishengchan” (Elite exchange and in-group reproduction in urban China). Shehuixue yanjiu 2009(6), 65–86.Google Scholar