Some spoke of growing wariness, even hostility, towards foreigners, while others said they were worried about a repeat of the pandemic lockdown experience. Their departures come amid rising tensions between China and the West. For Sophie Redding, a British PE teacher at an international school in Wuhan, the city where the coronavirus was first detected, a number of factors contributed to her decision to return to the UK in December 2023, according to SCMP . She began to feel that the city she once called “home” had become “less welcoming.”
Sophie Redding decides to leave China
“Suddenly, strangers started telling me to go home. People would see me in the elevator and they would wait for the next one. When the DiDi (a ride-hailing app) drivers I booked a ride with realized I was a foreigner, they would refuse to take me,” she said. Redding said things have eased since the pandemic, but her experience left her feeling like an outsider. “I still have so many great friends in Wuhan and all over China. That’s why I stayed so long… but all those small conversations and interactions get boring, and it starts to get in the way of all the great things about living in China,” she said. China has seen an exodus of foreigners from the country over the three years of the pandemic, driven by frustration over strict anti-Covid policies that have included restrictions on domestic and international travel, including a months-long lockdown in Shanghai, the city with the largest international population. In the decade to November 2020, the first year of the pandemic, the number of foreigners living in Shanghai fell by more than 20% to 164,000, and by 40% in Beijing to 63,000, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. While these are the latest figures available, two years of strict pandemic control have undoubtedly driven more foreign residents out.
Many people leave Shanghai, the city with the largest foreign population in China
There is no guarantee that a lockdown will not happen again.
The exodus of foreigners suggests that China will struggle to attract both individuals and companies from abroad. Redding is not the only person in China who has sensed a growing chill towards outsiders. James Campion, a British translator who left China last July, said he sensed a subtle shift in Chinese attitudes and found it harder to make new friends. “It’s not easy to strike up conversations and there seems to be a subtle hesitancy among some locals, perhaps reflecting a growing awareness of geopolitical tensions,” he said. Other scars from the non-Covid era persist. A Russian-American art teacher who left Shanghai after 13 years said her decision to return to her homeland was largely driven by concerns that the government might once again impose strict controls on people’s movements and activities. "I like Chinese people. I like Chinese food. I like a lot of things. I grew up in Russia, in a system that is almost the same. We have a lot of similarities and I understand them," said the woman in her 60s, who asked not to be named. "So I don't think there's any guarantee that it won't happen again. Because you could be locked down in the same way. People are afraid of repeating the experience of three years of Covid. No one wants to be away from their family for three years. That's a long time. Who knows if there will be another wave of Covid?" she worried.
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Find ways to attract foreigners
James Zimmerman, a partner at international law firm Perkins Coie and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said the factors behind the departures of individuals — which he described as “a combination of weak economics , compliance risks and geopolitical tensions” — are also driving away businesses. “While China is a large and attractive consumer market, foreign businesses are rethinking whether to maintain or expand the market due to a range of geopolitical issues.” The Covid pandemic has prompted some companies that rely on Chinese manufacturers to start diversifying their supply chains by looking for alternatives in other countries. Beijing has tried to address such concerns, issuing a new set of guidelines last August to attract foreign investors. These include commitments to protect intellectual property rights, ease visa and residency requirements, and temporary tax exemptions for foreigners who reinvest their profits in China. Some of these concerns could be addressed by easing visa policies or even residency requirements, said Wang Huiyao, founder and president of the Beijing-based think tank Center for China and Globalization.
Shanghai Pudong International Airport deserted in early 2024
Recent moves to make travel easier for tourists and business travelers — including one-year visa exemptions for citizens of Malaysia and five European countries — could be extended to the US, Japan, South Korea and other parts of Europe to create a more welcoming environment, he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping recently said Beijing is willing to invite 50,000 young Americans to participate in exchange and study programs over the next five years – this comes after a dramatic decline of more than 98% in the number of American students. The number has plummeted from 11,639 in the 2018-19 academic year to just 211 in the 2021-22 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors database. Statistics from China’s Ministry of Education show that after peaking in 2019, the number of foreign students studying at the country’s higher education institutions has fallen by more than 20% to 255,720 in 2021.
China has issued a series of new policies to ease entry and visa procedures in a bid to attract more foreign tourists and restore people-to-people exchanges. The new regulations, issued by the National Immigration Administration and effective immediately, aim to reduce eligibility requirements for entry visas, exempt transit passengers from border inspections at some airports, and simplify procedures for applying for entry visas, extension of stay, and multiple entries.
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