China’s wealthy elite is increasingly making offshore moves — surveys indicate that the Chinese hyper-rich are keenly aware that they have a lot more than their neighbors, and the government might one day decide to take it away. So money is flowing out of China, and if the Mainland one-percenters all go, it’ll tank the Chinese economy.
In case you are not already familiar with Prof. Victor Shih’s theory about capital flight from China, enough capital outflow from China (US$1 trillion or more) would cause huge liquidity problems in Chinese banking system, and the wealthiest 1% of Chinese households would be enough to cause that shift of capital should they decided to leave the country, move the money away, or whatever. And that shift might be happening already (albeit rather slowly), as manifested in the slow but consistent money outflow away from China since late last year, which, as we said, is already tightening liquidity in the banking system, now necessitating multiple rounds of liquidity injection in China.
Rich Chinese flee | | MacroBusiness
(via Naked Capitalism)