For decades, China’s “sea turtles” — a nickname for Chinese who returned to the motherland after years of studying and working abroad — prospered. They served as a cultural bridge, facilitating Western business expansion and investments into China. Along the way, they rose to the top at global banks and corporations, and earned millions of dollars.
Those were the good times. As Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) relations with the West continue to deteriorate, this cultural arbitrage — leveraging knowledge of both worlds and helping foreigners make money in China — is no longer working. To have viable careers, many “sea turtles” will soon have to choose: Do they want to be Chinese or Western?
Some of the popular professional paths are now fraught with uncertainty. Consider private wealth management, prized by every Wall Street bank for its steady fee income. In Asia, the primary focus of thousands of relationship managers is on China’s new rich. As of last year, there were about 6.2 million Chinese millionaires, according to UBS Group AG estimates.
On top of millionaires’ minds is how to get their money out of China, which caps the annual outflow to US$50,000 per person. With the yuan down 5.7 percent this year, the government is tightening its scrutiny of capital movements, going as far as banning Chinese brokers from opening offshore accounts for mainland retail investors.
This macro backdrop places private bankers in a gray zone. While they are not allowed by their employers to help clients bypass China’s capital controls, some do share contact information for underground agencies that do to maintain good relationships at a time when competition on the street is heating up. However, by doing so, they may be putting their safety at risk. In August, Shanghai detained five people for illegal foreign currency transactions, including a woman who ran an immigration services company.
The picture is hardly prettier for dealmakers seeking foreign money for Chinese start-ups. They waited out the draconian “zero COVID-19” restrictions, but have found no light at the end of the tunnel. Fundraising in Hong Kong, once the world’s top venue for initial public offerings (IPO), is on track for a two-decade low. Meanwhile, the mainland bourses are dominating the global IPO market. There, businesses sanctioned by Washington have become market darlings. How can a “sea turtle” working for a global firm sell these seismic investment trends to their clients? Their compliance officers would ring alarm bells.
These days, when I speak to my fellow “sea turtles,” geopolitics is clearly front and center. During my visit to Shanghai last week, a common lament was that the financial hub had “few foreigners left” — the city had gone through a brutal month-long COVID lockdown in April last year and many expats decided to depart in the aftermath. A few asked me if the recent conflict in the Middle East would divert the world’s attention away from Ukraine, and Xi’s “no limits” friendship with Russia, the invader.
Alas, the geopolitical tension is here to stay. China’s official response to Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 assault on Israel has raised eyebrows. While the US was quick to condemn Hamas, Beijing failed to do so and only blamed the conflict on historic factors. It was perhaps Xi’s attempt to stand China apart from US policies, but it was also in sharp contrast to his predecessors’ attitudes. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) unequivocally condemned terrorism and expressed China’s “deep sympathy and condolences” to the families of victims.
To be sure, there is still money and careers to be made. They can go deeper into China, serving clients there and fundraising locally, but they will have to deal with the government’s pervasive presence in the economy. Alternatively, they can stay with Western firms, leverage what they learned in China and build out investments into other emerging markets, but then they will just be another employee, who happens to be Chinese. The prized equity premium is gone.
Either way, being in a limbo, hoping for better US-China relations, is self-deceptive. It is time for sea turtles to pick the shore where they want to lay their eggs.
Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. A former investment banker, she was a markets reporter for Barron’s. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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