Raised in the cornfields of eastern China’s Shandong province, he founded an auto-parts business that now has several dozen employees. He has two houses, two cars and, because he’s rich enough to pay the fines for defying the country’s family planning policy, two children.

All that’s missing — what he covets most — is a foreign passport.

“In China, there is so much pressure,” said Wang, who recently hired a consulting firm to advise him on his first choice, Australia. He hasn’t been there yet, but he’s been surfing the Internet and likes what he sees: blue skies, open spaces. “I want to live a relaxed, happy life.”

The new Chinese émigrés have little in common with earlier waves of unskilled labourers or political exiles. They’re not going abroad for economic opportunity — they’re already wildly successful — or political activism, but for a quality of life that money can’t buy in China.

A recent poll of Chinese with a net worth of more than 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) found that 16 per cent had obtained foreign residency and that an additional 44 per cent were planning to emigrate. Many cited a polluted atmosphere, and not just in the air: endemic corruption, a shaky political system, tainted products and poor medical care, among other problems.

The exodus of the middle and upper class is an embarrassment to the government, with possibly serious economic implications because the émigrés are taking with them money and skills. In an attempt to prevent capital flight, Chinese laws limit people from taking more than $50,000 a year out of the country, but it is easy enough to get around the restrictions.

Dozens of consulting firms with names such as Royal Way Ahead Exit and Entry Service Co. have sprung up in recent years, their websites beckoning with photographs of swimming pools and world landmarks — the Statue of Liberty and the Sydney Opera House being among the most popular. Prospective immigrants troll the Internet, browsing real-estate listings and schools, examining rankings of the “World’s Most Livable Places.”

“The United States is still everybody’s dream, but they worry about crime,” said Leon Zhong, president of Xinhaowei Consulting, one of the largest companies advising prospective migrants. “All in all, though, the people who want business opportunities prefer the United States. The young professionals prefer Australia.”

To a large extent, the flight reflects pessimism about China’s future.

More immediate, there is the competition for spots in good universities, for housing, for space, for land.

“Scarcity is a very compelling reason,” said Zhong. “And to be frank, the environmental hazard is a factor: the air, the poisoned foods.”

“I had to send an assistant at 4 a.m. to stand in line so I could get in,” said Zhong, who has an Australian passport, having studied business in Melbourne in the 1980s. He travels frequently back and forth. “In Melbourne, I just telephone the doctor and get an appointment.”

Wang, the Shandong businessman, said the deciding factor for him has been corruption in the business world. “I have to give out gifts, cash, gift certificates. If I don’t give, business won’t happen. I’m tired of that.”

Tony Du, 33, a consultant at Xinhaowei, says he, like most of his clients, worries most about education. He has secured permanent residency in Canada, thanks to having studied in Paris and speaking fluent French, a prerequisite for a program sponsored by Quebec.

For the rich Chinese craving an American lifestyle, the way to go is the EB-5 visa. In September, the program was extended for three years. In fiscal 2011, Chinese made up three-quarters of the applicants. The successful applicants don’t need to speak English or have particular business expertise, just the cash. Consulting firms in China put together investment vehicles.

“I like agricultural projects, manufacturing. Real estate and hotels used to be popular, but they’re too risky,” Du said.

The big disadvantage of the U.S. program from the standpoint of Chinese investors, said Du, is that their immigration status is contingent on the business succeeding. “If the business fails, you lose your green card too.”

A Canadian program that was wildly popular is no longer accepting applicants, but Australia is still taking in rich Chinese by the thousands for ever larger sums of money. The newest program offers residency for the purchase of $5.2 million in treasury bonds.

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Last year, Chinese surpassed Britons as Australia’s largest source of permanent migrants, with 29,547 arriving.

“The number of people is growing,” said Ivy Wang, a real-estate broker in Melbourne selling suburban homes at an average price of $600,000 to Chinese newbies. “Australia is pretty easy: There is not much living pressure and the workload isn’t too heavy, not like in China.”

Barbara Demick is the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times and author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea.

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