Supply Chain

Trillions Escaping China: Is the Bust Already Underway?

June 7, 2011

The signs of a hard landing of the Chinese economy are getting easier to read.

In a recent study by Bain, a consultancy, and China Merchants Bank, more than 60% of China's high net worth individuals have already left China or are planning to emigrate.

Further, the newly acquired wealth of these entrepreneurs is leaving as well. The more than $2 trillion that has been sent overseas since 2000 could be more than the total amount of foreign investment into China in the past ten years.

If things are so good in China, why are the wealthy there bailing out?

Maybe it's because things are actually lousy, getting worse, and have been so for the past two years.

Most "experts" missed Japan's bust by 24-36 months and the same appears to be happening here.

Follow the money...

About the Author

Andrew R. Thomas Blog | Associate Professor of Marketing and International Business

Andrew R. Thomas, Ph.D., is associate professor of marketing and international business at the University of Akron; and, a member of the core faculty at the International School of Management in Paris, France.

He is a bestselling business author/editor, whose 23 books include, most recently, American Shale Energy and the Global Economy: Business and Geopolitical Implications of the Fracking Revolution, The Customer Trap: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake in Business, Global Supply Chain Security, The Final Journey of the Saturn V, and Soft Landing: Airline Industry Strategy, Service and Safety.

His book The Distribution Trap was awarded the Berry-American Marketing Association Prize for the Best Marketing Book of 2010. Another work, Direct Marketing in Action, was a finalist for the same award in 2008.

Andrew is founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation Security and a regularly featured analyst for media outlets around the world.

He has traveled to and conducted business in 120 countries on all seven continents.