What do you say regarding the large number of Chinese private entrepreneurs (and even corrupt civil servants) sending their wives and children overseas to receive permanent residencies? When rich Chinese have the chance to leave, they leave (hopefully bringing all their moneys with them) and help foreign governments to stab the CCP in the back. When I interned in Shanghai back in 2015, somehow 3 out of 5 Chinese I spoke to aspire Western rule of law and culture, while looking down on China's political system. Although they don't want to overthrow the CCP, they clearly believe Westerners are superior to themselves (逆向民族主义) and want to marry their daughters to "handsome white men." Another group of businessmen I met in Guangzhou told me that unless China has an independent judiciary system, they hope to immigrate overseas with their money. They fear that the CCP would simply snatch their money away with administrative orders or random corruption charges. I think their understanding of the West could be ignorant, but would you say they are traitors of China? I don't have an answer for you. What I know is that they are relatively more rich compared to people from other parts of China, so they pay more tax and have relatively more access to decision makers. The thing about China is that the more rich people are, the more pro-West they seem to be.
What is your field of internship? I have a feeling that it is a lucrative field where lots of illegal shortcuts/advantages can be utilized. I'd say you were dealing with a lot of criminals and money-launderers because those are the types of people who are scared of having the government take their wealth away. The CCP does not pick random rich people, especially not those who have shown allegiance with the CCP, and strip them of their wealth. You are dealing with people who have a lot of skeletons in the closet.
First of all, sending your family to live overseas is not stabbing the CCP in the back. Not anybody has the ability to do that as that entails either divulging classified information of actively aiding the CIA to incite unrest in your own country. Something that is obvious is that it's a lot more comfortable to live in the US and luxury comes cheaper so that, along with a name-brand education (for a kid who wasn't competitive enough to test into Qinghua or Beida) is why the Chinese aspire to live in the US. They simply want more comfort for less effort and when they get together in the US, their conversations are still, "Trump is attacking us and Americans are becoming racist towards us." and "Go team China! Hope we sweep the diving/table tennis medals again at the Olympics." These people are just regular people who can still "love" their country, but simply refuse to sacrifice their own comforts for anything. These make up the bulk of Chinese people who I meet in the US and it is very rare that I meet someone deluded enough to think that they have become American.
Regarding the belief that Westerners are superior, there has been that belief for decades because of how backwards China has traditionally been, however, this is shifting rapidly, sometimes
too rapidly. In Beijing, there is now growing a dangerous culture of arrogance that we have already left foreigners behind and they are not worthy of respect anymore. Most people in Beijing aspire to marry another rich Beijinger. The majority of those who emigrate or even go abroad to study, from what I can tell, show disdain and disappointment at America's cities with comments along the lines of, "This crappy countryside is Houston? I thought it was a major city?" or "Did we time-travel back to the 1950's while flying? I thought New York was supposed to be a modern city!" I have only been to Shanghai once maybe 15 years ago for a day so I can't claim to understand it but I dreaded the place because of how shallow and materialistic the people there seemed. It would not surprised if they still hold a reverence for Western things simply because it was ingrained into them that buying expensive Western luxury items is a symbol of status. Whether they said they wanted their daughters to "marry handsome white men" I don't know if you made that up to bolster your claim but I've never heard that, if for no other reason than the cultural difficulties. The most I've heard is that they would accept a foreigner into the family, but preferred a cultured and rich Chinese person if possible. And once again, their vision of a white person who was acceptable is someone who is a CEO or doctor or some other wealthy profession. That's why it's common to see divorces from people who make those mistakes, the Chinese side thinking that this person was a rich businessman who will lavish her and her children in wealth forever and after marriage finding out that he was in debt $12 million dollars and wanted to file bankruptcy and live the simple life. This is absolutely unacceptable to Chinese culture while Western culture says it's time to throw away the stress and carve out a piece of your life for soul-searching. A lot of Chinese people who have a "the grass is greener on the other side" attitude will lose a chunk of time for that mistake.
Anyway, this is significantly beyond the scope of the original conversation. You are talking to some rich old scumbags who clearly got their money in illegal ways cursing a government that may not allow them to continue their criminal activities. Needless to say, this is not China's major population. This came of a debate in which I told you that there is no way that the youth in China would rise up to rebel because those people are very happy with the CCP, would be the first to take down any attempts to start trouble against the government if they saw it on the street, and if they
did assemble for riot, it would be to storm into Hong Kong and destroy the traitorous rioters there. That is the point of this conversation, not your grimy old friends wondering how long they can keep evading taxes or run away before the CCP slams the hammer at them.
