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It has been six years since the United States unilaterally launched a trade war with China. Now it is taking the opportunity to harvest the assets of Chinese in the United States.
Since 2023, there have been frequent changes in the United States, the domestic financial market has been volatile, and foreign capital has been greatly lost. There was a wave of bank failures such as Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, and then there was the United Kingdom, harvesting overseas investment companies operating illegally in tax havens such as Cayman and the Bahamas to increase fiscal revenues, and then secretly using allies such as Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands to increase Sino-US trade frictions......
The various operations of the United States, no matter how good the excuses, have alerted those who have been blinded by the lighthouse, so that many people have recently begun to sell their assets in the United States and countries that the United States can govern with long arms, and return to the original China, which is poor and selfish after they have opened their mouths and closed their mouths. So, in the face of the return of the global Chinese and Chinese capital, are all parts of China ready to welcome it?
Pig slaughter plate for the Chinese?
In November 2023, the United States fined Binance Holdings Ltd., the Binance.com of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, $4.3 billion and imprisoned Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao on suspicion of money laundering, sending money without a license, and violating sanctions.
Source: Shangguan News
At first, in order to maximize profits, Changpeng Zhao issued virtual currency by himself and obtained UAE nationality, avoiding the issuance fee of 3.5 million US dollars and the pursuit of the United States.
But starting in March 2023, the United States accused Binance of money laundering. Forced by various means of the United States, Changpeng Zhao chose to go to the United States to negotiate and agreed to pay a fine of 150 million US dollars, but was arrested as soon as he arrived in the United States. After paying $170 million bail, the U.S. government issued the $4.3 billion fine.
In desperation, Changpeng Zhao finally chose to spend money to buy Ping An, reached an agreement with the U.S. government, pleaded guilty to the accusations of money laundering and unlicensed remittance against Binance, and paid the largest corporate fine in U.S. history - $4.3 billion, which became a typical example of being cut leeks by the United States.
According to the Forbes list, Changpeng Zhao's total personal assets are currently about 33 billion US dollars, or about 239 billion yuan, ranking 50th on the 2024 Forbes list of the world's richest people.
In addition, among the banks that have failed in the United States, there are many Chinese billionaires. For example, the bankruptcy of First Republic Bank in the United States caused more than 1 trillion yuan of assets to evaporate in an instant, and most of the more than 1,000 accounts affected were owned by Chinese or Chinese Americans, and the upper limit of compensation for these large depositors was only $250,000.
In the Asian Segment Act signed by the U.S. federal government on March 30, 2024, it is not shy about subdividing Asians into Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and others, claiming that more specific Asian-American segmentation information will help state governments provide more targeted services and assistance to various ethnic groups.
The statement of the Chung Hwa Community Conference said that the bill may cause unnecessary distress to the Asian American community and even have a long-term impact on the rights and interests of the Asian American community. "If subdivision is good for Asians, it will also be good for Hispanics or African Americans, so why don't we see the African-American subdivisions, the Hispanic subdivisions, and the white subdivisions? ”
Explicit or implicit racial discrimination against Asian Americans in the United States has a long history, and it has even intensified in recent years. In the first three months of 2021 alone, there were at least 33 crimes against Asians in New York City, according to the New York City Police Department's Asian Hate Crimes Task Force. According to a 2021 U.S. poll, 27% of Asian-Americans have experienced a hate crime or hate incident. The findings show that Asian-American communities in all regions of the United States have experienced varying degrees of racism.
The various operations of the United States, whether implicit or explicit, against the Chinese, have caused many Chinese in the United States to smell the crisis. Judging from the epidemic response in 2020, China is undoubtedly the safest country in the world, attracting a large amount of capital to return. The data shows that since 2021, a large amount of capital has begun to flow back to China, including many Chinese assets that have entered the United States.
There is a wave of Chinese returning to China to invest
According to the data of the National Immigration Administration, in 2023, the national immigration management agencies will inspect a total of 424 million people entering and leaving the country, an increase of 266.5% year-on-year, including 206 million mainland residents, 183 million Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan residents, and 35.478 million foreigners, an increase of 218.7%, 292.8%, and 693.1% year-on-year, respectively.
Source: National Immigration Administration
In the first quarter of 2024, the number of foreigners coming to China will increase by more than three times compared with the same period in 2023, and the number of foreigners entering China without visas will increase significantly. There is an endless flow of foreigners entering and leaving the country, including a large number of foreign business people who want to expand into the Chinese market.
The rising number of visitors to China has not only brought about the rise of China's stock market, but also brought a large amount of foreign investment.
From the end of April to the beginning of May 2024, the Hong Kong stock market ushered in a carnival of capital. In just two trading days, the trading volume of Hong Kong stocks exceeded HK$1.1 trillion, among which the stocks of industry giants such as Tencent, Meituan, and Weilai performed eye-catchingly. As of early May 2024, the Hong Kong stock Hang Seng Index rose 4.67% in a week, the second consecutive week of gains, and the index has risen for 9 consecutive trading days, the longest streak since 2018. The renminbi also rose significantly, reaching a peak on May 3, with the offshore renminbi surging to a weekly high of 7.1657 following the release of the US non-farm payrolls data.
This comes after global stock markets were shaken by concerns about U.S. inflation and potentially high U.S. interest rates, exacerbated by geopolitical risks in the Middle East. In the view of Huang Senwei, senior market strategist of AllianceBernstein, the cycle stages of China and the United States are different, and A-shares are expected to gradually gain attention. If international investors want to look for a stock market with sufficient market capitalization and sufficient liquidity to hedge against the risks of high US inflation and US dollar interest rates, A-shares may be expected to become one of the markets for diversification.
Fidelity International and other foreign investors have also sung long: the Chinese deal is back.
Foreign investment. In 2023, China's actual use of foreign direct investment (FDI) reached US$163.3 billion, the third highest in history after 2021 and 2022. At the same time, the structure of foreign investment continued to be optimized, with the proportion of investment in high-tech industries increasing by 1.3 percentage points compared with 2022, and the proportion of investment in manufacturing reaching 27.9%, an increase of 1.6 percentage points.
Source: Visual China
In order to understand some of the situations of foreign investment entering China, we deliberately selected the underdeveloped areas in the central and western regions as the research objects of this paper.
Specifically, in 2023, Gansu will implement a total of 4,452 foreign investment promotion projects in the province, with 596.127 billion yuan of funds in place, a year-on-year increase of 41.78%, and a contract amount of 1,017.711 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44.09%, boosting the province's high-quality economic and social development. Shanxi's investment attraction funds and actual utilization of foreign capital continue to expand, the world's top 500 enterprises have invested in the establishment of 103 foreign-funded enterprises, established 63 pairs of international sister cities and 117 pairs of friendly partners, and the inland areas have entered a new frontier of reform and opening up.
Heilongjiang's total import and export volume increased by 12.3% year-on-year, of which exports increased by 39.4%, ranking sixth and third in the country respectively. The implementation plan of "buying all Russia and selling the whole country, buying the whole country and selling all Russia" was introduced, and the total import and export volume to Russia increased by 13.5 percent, of which exports to Russia increased by 67.1 percent. The province's port cargo volume and the number of inbound and outbound passengers increased by 17.5% and 709.2% respectively. The trade volume of cross-border e-commerce increased by 144.2%. The actual utilization of foreign capital increased by 11.8 percent, 25.4 percentage points higher than the national average, and 241 foreign-invested enterprises were newly established, an increase of 68.5 percent.
The direct benefit of Heilongjiang's sharp increase in foreign trade is that from the winter of 2023 to the spring of 2024, Harbin has contributed an extremely warm winter to the people of the whole country. From this point of view, Heilongjiang is undoubtedly one of the provinces that have steadily received the wealth and wealth thrown by the United States.
Looking at the case of Heilongjiang, Zibo in Shandong, BA in Chaochao Village in Guizhou, and Malatang in Tianshui, Gansu, which will be popular all over the country in 2024, will these provinces also catch the wealth thrown by the United States? Otherwise, according to the past level of economic development in some provinces, if it were not for the central government's fiscal transfer payment policy, it would be very problematic for the finances to eat.
As China's most economically mature and developed region, the eastern region will naturally not lag behind. Statistics show that the mayor of a city, one of the four municipalities directly under the central government, will receive more than 730 foreign guests in 2023, mainly the heads of enterprises and investment institutions who come to China to look for opportunities or have already developed in China.
Entering 2024, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce, from January to February, 7,160 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in the country, a year-on-year increase of 34.9%, the highest level in the past five years. What does this mean?
China has become a must for multinational companies
He Yadong, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, once introduced, "In 2023, many executives of multinational companies will visit China intensively, and they generally say that the Chinese market is not an 'option', but a 'must-choose'. ”
Since 2024, heads of nearly 100 multinational companies, including Apple Inc., HSBC Bank, BNP Paribas, and Mercedes-Benz Group, have visited China and increased their investment in China, casting a "vote of confidence" for China's high-level opening up.
On March 20, Apple CEO Tim Cook bluntly said in an interview, "I don't think there is anything more important to Apple's supply chain than China." ”
Cook publicly stated at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the China Development Forum: "I am very happy to be back in China again, and we will continue to invest in the Chinese market. In addition, the forum attracted nearly 100 heads of multinational companies, including ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Woodrun, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Albert, etc.
Source: Visual China
On the same day, more than 140 senior executives of multinational companies from 17 countries and regions and representatives of foreign business associations in China participated in the first landmark event of "Invest in China" held in Beijing.
However, contrary to the excitement of foreign companies visiting China, some Western media are concocting the "theory of deterioration of investment in China". One of the arguments for this view is that there will be a certain degree of fluctuation in the scale of foreign investment attracted by the mainland in 2023.
According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, in 2023, 53,766 foreign-invested enterprises will be newly established in the country, a year-on-year increase of 39.7%, and the actual amount of foreign capital used will be 1,133.91 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.0%.
Regarding the absorption of foreign investment in the country from January to February 2024, the person in charge of the Department of Foreign Investment of the Ministry of Commerce said that in terms of scale, although the actual use of foreign investment in the mainland from January to February 2024 has declined, it is still at the third highest level in the past 10 years.
From a structural point of view, from January to February, 1,865 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in high-tech industries, a year-on-year increase of 32.2%, and the actual use of foreign investment was 71.44 billion yuan, accounting for 33.2% of the country's actual use of foreign investment, an increase of 1.2 percentage points over the same period in 2023 (32%). Among them, the actual use of foreign investment in high-tech manufacturing was 28.27 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.1%.
"Although some countries have promoted the return of industry and capital and introduced restrictions on China-related investment, which has interfered with normal cross-border investment decisions, many multinational companies still choose to invest in China," said the person in charge. ”
Source: Visual China
"China's economy is resilient, full of potential and full of vitality, and the next China is still China – China is still a hot spot and a highland for multinational companies to invest. Amway Global CEO Pan Mulin said. The company has invested in China for nearly 30 years, and China has been Amway's largest and fastest-growing market in the world for 21 consecutive years, with an average annual growth rate of 7% in the past three years.
Cui Hongjian, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study of Regional and Global Governance at Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, believes that at present, the world economic recovery is weak. China's in-depth reform and opening up has once again provided the world with a source of impetus for development and stability. China's economy will contribute more than 30% to global economic growth in 2023, which is the main reason why China continues to attract investment from around the world. In the recent period, in addition to the continuous growth of investment in traditional manufacturing and other industries, investors from foreign tertiary industries such as medical services, insurance and finance have also increased their interest in the Chinese market.
He also pointed out that "for China, it is not only necessary to attract foreign investment through market attractiveness, but also to form a comprehensive attraction to foreign foreign investment through talent advantages and innovative mechanisms." Only in this way can we ensure that China's economy will always be on the path of sustainable development, and that China's economy and the world economy will always be in a state of benign interaction, mutual promotion and mutual achievement. ”
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1. "China Focus Face to Face" and "Spring Diplomacy" Set Off a Boom of Guests from Five Continents Coming to China.chinanews.2024-04-16.
2. Heilongjiang 2023 Government Work Report.2024-01-31.
3. "Looking back at 2023" In 2023, the province's investment attraction funds in place will be 596.127 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 41.78%.Jinchang Public Security Bureau.2024-05-01.
4.China Release/China Continues to Increase Efforts to Attract Foreign Investment Is Foreign Capital Still Willing to Invest in China?.china.2024-04-08.
5. "Visiting China" Focuses on New Opportunities for "Investing in China".%China Economic Weekly.2024-04-15.
6. Hong Kong Stock Market Soaring Secret: The Yen Falls Disorderly, and Foreign Capital Flows Back to Hong Kong.Finance.2024-05-04.
7. Today's data selection: funds have obviously returned to Hong Kong stocks and A shares, and the yen exchange rate once fell below 160.Shangguan News.2024-04-30.
8. The number of foreign visitors to China more than tripled year-on-year in the first quarter, and there is a new change here→.CCTV News.2024-04-28.
9. The Great Reversal!Major changes in A-shares, the holiday is good, more than 10 billion funds pour into A-shares, and foreign capital sings long: China's trading is back.Finance.2024-05-05.
10.In 2023, the number of people entering and leaving the country will exceed 424 million.National Immigration Administration.2024-01-08.
11. The former "richest man in China" pleaded guilty and resigned!The company was fined $4.3 billion.Shangguan News.2023-11-23.