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According to a new study conducted by consultancy firm Bain & Company, more than 50 percent of China’s richest citizens have considered leaving the country to secure their wealth abroad. Out of the 2600 “high net individuals” surveyed in the study, around 10 percent of the wealthiest Chinese citizens have already moved. Another 10 percent plan to apply for investment immigration status, a form of temporary or permanent residence that countries may grant to immigrants who have created jobs and brought development to a less-prosperous region. The number of Chinese citizens whose assets exceed 10 million yuan (or $1.5 million) has doubled since 2008 and is expected to reach more than half a million people by late 2011. In her newest work, Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China, author and media critic Jianying Zha profiles six entrepreneurs, intellectuals and artists at the forefront of an ever-expanding Chinese economy. Her six subjects belong to a growing elite responsible for shaping Chinese society as the country continues to toe the line between absolute government control and deregulation.

GUEST: Jianying Zha’s earlier books include China Pop (in English), and the award-winning book The Eighties (in Chinese) a cultural retrospective of the 1980s in China. She has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, and various Chinese publications, and spends her time between New York and Beijing.

Listen to Part 2 of the interview with Jianying Zha here: http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=20599