Wealthy Chinese prefer to immigrate to US, Canada

Canada is still the second most-preferred destination to immigrate to for Chinese high-net-worth-individuals (HNWIs), despite its having changed its immigration policy recently, the Beijing News reported Saturday, citing a white paper jointly released by Hurun Research Institute and Visas Consulting Group.

Among 141 Chinese HNWIs each of whom has wealth worth 42 million yuan ($6.7 million) on average and have already immigrated or plan to immigrate, 52 percent of the interviewees regarded the US as their preferred destination, followed by 21 percent for Canada, 9 percent favoring Australia and 7 percent choosing Europe, according to the report.

The report said the main reason these interviewees favor the US and Canada is easy access to obtaining a permanent resident card, while another reason for choosing Canada is "relatives and friends being there."

Chen Zhaohui, an immigration lawyer at Visas, was quoted by the report as saying that "the cases of Chinese people's investment immigration increased quickly in recent years due to simplified procedures for getting permanent resident cards, but Canada's ending of an immigrant investor program also showed investment immigration is not easy."

Canada scrapped a federal immigration investor program in February, halting the process for tens of thousands of Chinese millionaires who were on the waiting list.

The program required each applicant to have a personal wealth of C$1.6 million ($1.46 million) and make an investment of C$800,000, which is loaned to the Canadian government for five years. It had been in operation for 28 years.

Immigrant investors pay less tax than other types of immigrants and they are less likely to stay in Canada over the long term, the Canadian Embassy in Beijing told the Global Times via e-mail in February.

Su Zhe, a 25-year-old Chinese studying in Vancouver, told the Global Times that in many Chinese immigrant families, mothers and children stayed in Canada but fathers still run businesses in China.

Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP) estimated in February that more than 46,000 applicants from the Chinese mainland, accounting for 70 percent of the total backlog, will be affected.

More than 1,300 mainland applicants jointly filed a lawsuit, SCMP reported Wednesday.

They are demanding C$5 million in compensation for each applicant and their dependents unless the Canadian government agrees to assess their applications, the report said.

"In my personal view, Chinese plaintiffs do not have a big chance of winning the lawsuit," Liu Guofu, a professor and immigration law expert with the Beijing Institute of Technology, told the Global Times Sunday.

The Canadian government has the right to adjust or cancel its investment immigration program and it is hard for the plaintiffs to prove their economic loss, Liu said.

There are few examples of an immigration authority's decision being overturned by a court and as a common law country, Canada will follow previous legal cases, according to Liu.