According to a paper jointly released by Hurun Report and the Bank of China, about 14 percent of the rich in China with assets worth tens of millions of yuan have already migrated or have applied to migrate to other countries, while half of them intend to emigrate, which has sparked another heated discussion among the public, says an article in Changjiang Daily. Excerpts:

Unlike the previous two, the third wave of migration since the beginning of the 21st century has seen the majority of Chinese emigrants change from poor laborers to the nouveaux riches and intellectual elites.

Generally speaking, the urge of successful people to leave the country and the social environment that helped them be successful in life is surprising.

The reason why the rich and elite are eager to leave the country is that they think the social environment which they have benefited from is no longer attractive enough. If that's what the rich think, we can imagine what the condition of the people living at the bottom of society who face much harsher conditions under the current public security system is.

Therefore, we should spare more thought and give greater attention to people's most instinctive and fundamental demand for security and stability. The phenomenon of even the rich and elite wanting to migrate mirrors the overall failure of social security and, hence, the authorities should take steps to urgently reform the social security system to help the poor.  

(China Daily 11/15/2011 page9)