Introduction
Chinese mobility around the world has intensified since 1990. According to the United Nations, Chinese emigration from mainland China (PRC) amounted to 4.22 million individuals in 1990 and doubled to 9.96 million in 2019. In Southeast Asia, the number of Chinese emigrants amounted to 634,278 in 1990 and increased to 717,211 in 2019. Thailand was host to 77,581 Chinese migrants in 2019, making it the second-largest recipient of Chinese immigrants in Southeast Asia, while Singapore ranks at the top, with 380,145 Chinese immigrants (United Nations, 2019).
Chinese emigrants to Thailand work for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), government and private companies, institutes, individual businesspeople and entrepreneurs. The migrant population also includes Chinese students (elementary, secondary school and college students) and their accompanying family members. These populations usually migrate transnationally to access better living conditions and economic opportunities through business, work, education and lifestyles available elsewhere, which today appear within the context of changing patterns of global capitalism and nation states.
Over the past decade, some scholars (e.g. Aranya Siriphon Reference Aranya and Santasombat2015: 147–166, Reference Aranya, Nyiri and Tan2017: 79–96; Nyiri Reference Nyiri2007; Nyiri and Saveliev Reference Nyiri and Saveliev2002; Tan Reference Tan2012; Zhuang Reference Zhuang and Pan2006: 98–103) have examined the rise of this new wave of Chinese migration using the terms xinyimin, 新移民, ‘new migrants’ and both ‘Chinese immigration’ and ‘emigration’. These scholars have pointed out that the rising wave of Chinese migration has been enthusiastically encouraged by the Chinese state since the 1980s, which is when China began its earliest stage of economic reform and implemented the ‘go-out’ and ‘invite-in’ policies. Along with these policies, the Chinese state has strategically created a ‘xinyimin official discourse’ on Chinese migration for both immigration and emigration that has been disseminated through China's mass media and broadcast throughout the world (Nyiri Reference Nyiri, Nyiri and Saveliev2002: 208–241). Policies and practices, seen as part of China's economic statecraft (Yang and Liang Reference Yang and Liang2019: 381–385), have resulted in the influential reestablishment of China's transnational linkages (Barabantseva Reference Barabantseva2011: 8–9; Liu Reference Liu and Sin-Kwok Wong2008: 118–148; Nyiri Reference Nyiri, Nyiri and Saveliev2002). These statecraft practices not only mobilize Chinese people to pursue economic opportunity elsewhere but also construct an image of modern Chinese patriots who, on the one hand, return to help their homeland and on the other leave in search of prosperity outside of the Chinese ‘motherland’. Since the launch of the going out policy, xinyimin discourse and other combined policies (e.g. financial and infrastructure restructuring and bilateral and multilateral relationships), interest in overseas investment by SOEs, private companies and SMEs has increased exponentially. Some prominent Chinese businesses and professional organizations have been expanding their investments in international markets.
Some scholars have noticed a trend in Chinese emigration that began in the mid-2000s involving a new wave of Chinese migration characterized by transnational mobility. Chan (Reference Chan, Wah Chan, Yee and Koh2018: 211–221) for example, identified diverse forms of migration, including education, business, marriage, birth tourism-led and lifestyle migration, through which Chinese emigrants have formed various diasporas and different relationships with China and their respective host countries. This new wave of Chinese emigration has resulted in diverse contexts associated with global flows, state influences and neoliberal tendencies. China's dynamic rise has continuously emerged as China has become a global political and economic power coupled with evolving patterns of regionalization and globalization (Chan and Koh Reference Chan and Koh2018). These rapidly changing national and global contexts have given rise to remarkable opportunities for change whereby more well-educated and technologically innovative and sophisticated generations of young Chinese and other groups have emigrated to pursue personal development, career advancement, education and international work experiences.
This article explores this new wave of Chinese emigration by focusing on recent Chinese migrants working for Chinese private companies and conducting transnational business in Thailand, particularly in Chiang Mai Province, in 2019. Methodologically, we applied qualitative methods, performed fieldwork in 2019 and collected data. For this article, we selected two registered Chinese companies that conducted real estate and international education activities in Chiang Mai as case studies. The first case study is that of a four-star resort that offers housing and the types of senior care services that are currently popular among Chinese seniors. The second case study examines the Louis Vilaa Study Centre, which aims to grow the international education sector in order to meet the increasing demand for overseas education. The two case studies address an aspect of Chinese capitalism and its flexibilization (Nonini Reference Nonini2003: 83; Yos Santasombat Reference Yos and Santasombat2018: 1–26), whereby increasing levels of complexity and transnational entrepreneurship arising from China have been recently and flexibly adopted in collaboration with the Chinese state to begin a new era for modern China (Rofel Reference Rofel2007). Based on our two case studies, we argue that China's private companies have employed intrapreneurs and cultivated entrepreneurial value for their employees, professionals and co-partners in pursuit of transnational business as part of a flexible strategy created in response to new business lines and emerging market demand from both China and other parts of the globe. However, while the Chinese and Thai states have played an important role in facilitating and regulating Chinese business conducted in Thailand's emerging markets, transnational business is still in an early stage and may not evolve as expected.
Situating the Transnational Business Context from China to Chiang Mai
In situating transnational business from China to Thailand (Chiang Mai, in particular), we found that Chinese companies registered under Thailand's Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999) operate transnational businesses throughout Thailand. According to the Department of Business Development of the Thailand Ministry of Commerce, 33,161 Chinese companies operated throughout Thailand from 2016 to 2018. The central region of Thailand, especially Bangkok Province, ranks at the top, with 23,321 Chinese companies registered there. It is followed by the eastern region, with 4225 Chinese companies registered. The southern and northern regions rank third and fourth with 2340 and 2309 Chinese companies registered, respectively (Aranya Siriphon and Li Reference Aranya and Jiangyu2020: 23). In northern Thailand, Chiang Mai is the most popular province for Chinese business ventures, with 1616 Chinese companies and enterprises registered from 2016 to 2018 (67 per cent in the north). In Chiang Mai, in 2017, the largest number of business ventures (115 Chinese companies) focused on wholesale and retail trade, with a total investment of BHT 2.2 billion (US$71 million). Real estate activities were the second largest business for Chinese investment, representing 95 registered companies and BHT 3.3 billion (US$107 million) in investment value. Chinese companies and investors invested in nine registered education companies in Chiang Mai in 2017, worth BHT 86 million (US$2.7 million) (Aranya Siriphon and Li Reference Aranya and Jiangyu2020: 25). Although real estate and international education businesses are comparatively less prominent than other business ventures in Thailand, the level of Chinese investment demonstrates Chinese companies’ growing interest in investing in emerging business markets popularized by customers from both China and other parts of the globe.
Case Study Introduction: Senior Care Service Centre
For our field research, we conducted a case study of a four-star resort. The owner is Mr Wang, who is 39 years old and from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China. He is among the many Chinese entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs of existing companies that have capitalized on the rapidly growing business opportunities available in Chiang Mai. Wang has partnered with Overseas Retirement of China Group Co., Ltd, a private parent company from Hong Kong specializing in the real estate business for senior customers retiring or living abroad. Wang and his parent company have invested in the leasing of 20,000 m2 of land and developed a four-star resort called Chiang Mai Yun He Yi Yang Du Jia Cun (清迈云和怡养度假村), or in English, Chiang Mai Yunhe Cozy Resort, located in the Hangdong district, 15 km from the city. The resort's websiteFootnote 1 describes it as surrounded by a tranquil natural setting, rice paddy fields and lychee groves suitable for retired life. Wang built the resort in 2018, offering 50 rooms and four electronic beds for residents with disabilities, along with swimming and fitness facilities. The daily rate for lodging is CNY 100, without meals. Interestingly, Yunhe Cozy Resort has also signed a contract with the Chiang Mai Ram Hospital to cooperate in providing medical care services and hospital support to its clients. Currently, Wang's business provides short-term services to elderly Chinese tourists, especially those over the age of 65, who consider Chiang Mai a popular travel destination and continue to visit. He also expects to provide long-term housing and services to elderly Chinese residents in search of a second home to which they can comfortably travel from China.
Apart from aiming to address the challenges of elderly life for Chinese people in China, Wang and his parent company, as well as other Chinese investors and real estate developers, have noticed an increasing number of Chinese seniors travelling outside the country for tourism, representing an increase of 217 per cent in 2015, which is higher than domestic tourism's rate of 95 per cent (Hollingsworth Reference Hollingsworth2016). The senior traveller group is viewed as a new ‘niche market’ and a good opportunity for investing overseas in retirement properties and the senior care service business.
Chiang Mai is a popular city that attracts senior Chinese customers for short-term travel and long-term stays who wish to experience in person what they have imagined on Chiang Mai, Man Sheng Huo and Mai Cun. Man Sheng Huo (慢生活) translates to ‘slow life’, and Mai Cun (迈村) translates to Chiang Mai Village (Tao Reference Tao, Vaddhanaphuti and Ming2019: 99–116). The lifestyle, natural and cultural resources and high-quality but inexpensive medical care offered in Chiang Mai are attractive to the Chinese seniors from Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and other Chinese cities who purchase homes there. Although the elder care business is currently a small sector, Wang predicts that this industry will grow in the near future as Chinese baby boomers age and seek peaceful areas to live that offer health care services.
Case Study Introduction: International Education Centre
The Louis Vilaa Study Centre is examined as a case study of one of the nine Chinese companies operating international educational businesses in Chiang Mai and registered under Thailand's Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999). Established in 2017 in Chiang Mai, the Louis Vilaa Study Centre is operated by Joey,Footnote 2 a 38-year-old woman who works as the education centre's principal. Joey works for the Kangda Group Company, which is a compound corporate group established in 1992 and headquartered in the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone, Guangdong Province.
Joey's boss at the Kangda Group initially sent her to a branch company in Xishuangbanna in Yunnan Province, China, to find opportunities to invest in real estate there in 2013. However, after Joey had worked for only a few months in Xishuangbanna, her boss saw that business was increasing in Thailand and asked her to explore which emerging businesses (the so-called ‘blue ocean market’) in Thailand would be suitable for investment. After several months of travelling throughout Thailand, and Chiang Mai in particular, in 2014, Joey determined that international education businesses offered the best investment opportunities. Her boss agreed after observing the market for overseas education and its enormous potential and provided her with direct funds for two phases with conditions and expected outcomes.
The first phase of the international education business under Joey's management targets several groups and provides different courses relevant to these groups. For example, the centre provides beginner Thai language classes for Chinese newcomers who want to learn Thai; English tutorial classes for Chinese students studying at international schools; English IELTS/TOEFL tutorial classes for Chinese students seeking to apply for further international education; and Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi training classes for Thai students wishing to study in China for a short or long term. In addition to offering regular courses, Joey and her local business partners organize short-term study courses, educational tours and summer camps under their ‘Learning on the Way’ campaign which provides educational tourism services to Chinese groups seeking new international learning opportunities.
The international education services organized by Joey and the Kangda Group form an emerging market that addresses the demands of middle-class Chinese families sending their children to study abroad. Similar to the international education boom occurring in Western countries and trends found in Asia (e.g. Singapore), Thailand has over the past decade witnessed increasing levels of educational migration by Chinese young adults and children accompanied by their parents. This pursuit of an overseas education to improve Chinese only children's educational opportunities is practised not only by wealthy Chinese families travelling to trans-Pacific countries but also by a growing number of middle-class Chinese families sending their children to study abroad (Aranya Siriphon and Li Reference Aranya and Jiangyu2020: 100–102; Huang and Yeoh Reference Huang and Yeoh2005).
Flexible Capitalism: Entrepreneurial Actors, Private Companies and the Chinese State
This section discusses one aspect of Chinese capitalism and its flexibilization (Nonini Reference Nonini2003: 83; Yos Santasombat Reference Yos and Santasombat2018: 1–26). Yos (Reference Yos and Santasombat2018: 1–26) used the term flexible capitalism interchangeably with adaptability in reference to middle-class Chinese transnational entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia who are now well-educated, well-travelled, highly individualistic, high-tech-oriented, highly mobile and risk-taking investors. The two cases explored in this study show how private companies from China have enthusiastically adopted a new flexible mechanism in encouraging their employees, start-ups and co-partners to pursue transnational business in emerging markets. Two new business strategies—deploying intrapreneurship and cultivating entrepreneurial value in employees and business partners—are examined in terms of increasing levels of complex and transnational entrepreneurship arising from China that have recently been flexibly adopted in partnership with both private companies experimenting with emerging businesses and the Chinese state with creating a new era for modern China (Rofel Reference Rofel2007).
Deploying Intrapreneurship
The two cases of the Louis Vilaa Study Centre adopting Joey's business model and the co-partnering in a senior service business adopted under Wang's model may reflect a global trend found among large companies that are utilizing flexible strategies of capital investment and accumulation, production and labour organization.
One of the several business strategies adopted is ‘intrapreneurship’, which combines production processes with labour organization. Normally, an ‘intrapreneur’ is an employee of a corporation/company who takes responsibility for innovating and turns an idea into a profitable finished outcome by assuming the assertive risk. The term can also be used to refer to other kinds of employees such as professional managers, executive managers, entrepreneurial employees or part-time freelancers.
Coined in the 1980s by Gifford Pincho, a management consultant in the United States (cited in Macrae, Reference Macrae1982:47–52), intrapreneurs were first employed by U.S. companies that were in need of new innovative ideas. Intrapreneurs and intrapreneurship entail entrepreneurship in existing organizations and new business ventures performed by existing organizations focused on the entrepreneurial individual within a corporation. Antoncic and Hisrich (Reference Antoncic and Robert D.2003: 7–23) defined intrapreneurship as emergent behavioural intentions and behaviours of an organization found within an existing firm regardless of its size. Ideally and practically, while a company gives its employees the freedom to experiment and the potential for growth within an organization, intrapreneurs always exhibit a strong commitment to creative achievement and to developing ideas with fruitful outcomes (Ma et al. Reference Ma, Liu and Ranjan2016: 116).
In China, intrapreneurship (内企业家) was first used and practised by large Chinese companies, especially SOEs, in the fast-growing Chinese economy after the country's economic reforms in 1990s. Ma et al. (Reference Ma, Liu and Ranjan2016: 114–123) provided some examples of Chinese employees who became intrapreneurs or entrepreneurial employees and who succeeded in developing companies starting in the early 1980s. For example, in 1984, Zhang Ruiming transformed the former Qingdao Refrigerator Factory into the Haier Group, which is today the largest producer of white goods in the world. Such intrapreneurs acted as pioneers with the goal of creating internal ventures and transforming them into successful businesses able to compete in the global market.
Since the first pioneers emerged in the Chinese state-owned sector, intrapreneurship has been utilized within start-up and spin-off models of Chinese enterprises operating in the emerging Chinese market and beyond (Kroll and Liefner Reference Kroll and Ingo2008: 298–313). Two methods are explicitly applied. First, a new firm can obtain direct funds to subcontract tasks and translate creative ideas into innovative products. Second, professionals, employees or executive managers can be hired in large companies but assigned to the specific task of leading a new strategic business plan with funding provisions and then apply the ideas and plan for the achievement of actual outcomes. Currently, such companies are usually called ‘business angel investors’ (Scheela et al. Reference Scheela, Thu Trang and Kim Anh2018) and commit investment funds directly to their employees and professionals or provide shared equity funds with individuals acting as co-partners when conducting co-business activities.
As illustrated by the two cases, while Wang and his parent company shared private equity and a line of credit and expertise in facilitating the co-business, Joey's model, with the Kangda Group Company and her boss serving as the angel investor, provided her with direct funds for two phases. The first phase of investment supported a three-year project in the amount of RMB 3 million (US$423,695). The second phase of investment was set at RMB 2 million (US$282,447), provided that the education business was successful in establishing an international school in Chiang Mai, which could then be pursued as part of a future plan for the mother company. In both cases, Chinese private companies operated as business angel investors by providing a significant source of financing for early-stage ventures and giving back by providing start-up enterprises, entrepreneurs, staff and employees with management and marketing expertise equity and/or a line of credit and advice in developing their ventures. This flexible strategy and business approach has recently emerged as a way of providing alternative financing for SMEs and individuals and for entrepreneurial employees participating in the ‘blue ocean’ market (Scheela et al. Reference Scheela, Isidro, Jittrapanun and Nguyen2015).
Cultivating Entrepreneurial Value
In both cases, with Joey being asked by her boss to establish an international education centre and Wang operating a senior service business partnership with the Overseas Retirement of China Group, a new type of entrepreneurial employee, professional and business partner who works well within the greater complexities of the many flexible work structures of modern business has emerged. This is especially true in the sense that employees and business partners have been motivated to cultivate an ‘entrepreneurial mindset’. Young Chinese intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs recognize the current value of business, creativity, innovation, communication skills, professionalism and modern managerial and technological advancement. Such individuals not only look for opportunities but also pursue and develop an intrapreneurial/entrepreneurial vision with unwavering focus, consistency, persistence and resilience.
Both working as an intrapreneur/entrepreneur and the utilization of entrepreneurship to create innovative businesses have become desirable from societal and individual perspectives. Remarkably, this trend has become a common theme, with the spontaneous realization of rational individuals in modern times universally characterized by their entrepreneurial mindsets and behaviours (Dahlstedt and Hertzberg Reference Dahlstedt and Fredrik2012: 242–262, Reference Dahlstedt and Fredrik2013:26–43). Regardless of the domination of business-like thinking, some scholars have critically examined entrepreneurial notions by linking them to aspects of governmentality, neoliberal rationality, economic markets and subjectivities. Bröckling (Reference Bröckling2016) examined the ‘entrepreneurial self’ as involving the creation of new forms and modes of subjectivity in which human life is actually incorporated through “an interpellation to act” (Althusser Reference Althusser1971) or by being urged to act as an entrepreneur/intrapreneur. For example, Bröckling (Reference Bröckling2016) argued that a human subject who gains the value of the entrepreneurial mindset is associated with multiple regimes, especially governmental regimes of knowledge whose power conveys to people truths about themselves and about the logic governing their actions and social relations. Cultivation of the entrepreneurial mindset, self-management and modern techniques of self-disciplinary practices has become a common sense and general approach to life, reflecting the modern governmentality, neoliberal rationality and economic markets appearing since the shift from a culture of dependency to one of self-reliance (Peters Reference Peters2001: 58–71).
As illustrated by the case of Joey and the international education centre, the Kangda Group has encouraged Joey to evolve from a ‘traditional employee’ working regularly and routinely during office hours into an ‘entrepreneurial subject’ eager to take responsibility for innovating and creating new projects and then turning those initiative ideas into a profitable finished product through the assertive calculation of risk and opportunity. Today, Chinese intrapreneurs like Joey are motivated not only by their own performance or a keen sense of inspiration encouraged by other companies but also by their strong desire to create new ventures and their strong commitment to success.
In the case of Wang and his resort for senior care services, his business background indicates an interpellated view of entrepreneurial actors as rational, calculating and ambitious individuals who demonstrate accountability, personal responsibility and an ability to provide for their own needs. Wang's business background led to both success and failure in his former career as the owner of a construction company focused on real estate in China. Unfortunately, real estate in China has declined over the past several years and become highly competitive among Chinese companies. With his entrepreneurial mindset premised on ambition, calculation and personal responsibility, he decided to seek another business opportunity in Chiang Mai in 2017. By strategically surveying several business markets (in Southeast Asia) via his travel, he has evolved from a traditional businessperson to a self-managed, calculative decision-maker who has embraced opportunities, risks and challenges. He ultimately sold his assets in China to move his family to Chiang Mai in order to provide elder care services in partnership with the mother company, and he optimistically anticipates witnessing future growth in his business opportunities and enjoying a happy family life.
The cultivation of the entrepreneurial mindset, which involves taking a modern approach to self-disciplinary practices of active improvement, risk acceptance, difficulty and injury management, calculative decision-making, and managerial and technological advancement (Scharff Reference Scharff2015: 107–122), has become the new basis for employee models (e.g. professional managers, entrepreneurial employees, intrapreneurs and/or entrepreneurs). Our case studies examining Joey's and Wang's experiences could be seen as examples of the transformation of traditional employees and unsuccessful businesspeople into a new type of entrepreneurial employee. The entrepreneurial actors on the one hand have strong ambitions to gain success and on the other hand want to make work flexible to serve the new purposes of larger companies.
In addition to Chinese companies that cultivate entrepreneurial mindsets among their employees and business partners, the Chinese state has also played an important role in encouraging entrepreneurial mindsets in its citizens. Operating within the neoliberal context, the Chinese state no longer patronizes Chinese citizens by providing all public goods but rather creates suitable circumstances and institutions that support neoliberal efforts and encourage individuals to take responsibility for their own livelihoods (Ong and Li Reference Ong and Zhang2008; Rose and Miller Reference Rose and Peter2008). To pave the way for Chinese citizens to become entrepreneurial actors, the Chinese state, under market-oriented reforms instituted over the past two decades, has been creating economic policies to support economic development. For example, in observing the decline of Chinese SOEs since the 2000s, the Chinese state has supported SMEs, non-SOEs and other private business sectors by promoting technological innovation policies and development in the creative economy, granting financial support via tax incentives and improving the financing environment (Chen Reference Chen2006; Liu Reference Liu and Sin-Kwok Wong2008). China's private companies and self-employment sectors have since flourished throughout China and beyond. The Chinese state is explicitly proactive in helping foster transnational entrepreneurship and a business-friendly environment through its effective and relevant policies and strategies applied within and outside of China to help facilitate transnational Chinese business (Aranya Siriphon Reference Aranya and Santasombat2019: 271–290).
Transnationalizing Business Ventures to Chiang Mai: Opportunities and Challenges
International Education Business
The example of Joey establishing an international education centre could reflect a new experimental practice engaged in by both Chinese private companies and entrepreneurial employees within the blue ocean market. As for the company, this education centre represents the first time that the Kangda Group has experimented with two goals in particular. Regarding the first goal, over the past two decades, the Kangda Group Company, as a global and diversified enterprise group offering a wide range of products and services, has been involved in several industries (e.g. real estate, property management, manufacturing and R&D, logistics, wholesale and retail). However, the company is now seeking new economic opportunities in innovative service industries. As an angel investor in Joey's international education centre model in Thailand, the Kangda Group plans to capitalize on its experience by building a Chinese international school in Chiang Mai in the near future, following other international schools that are being built throughout the region. Apart from this plan, the company is also experimenting with ‘brand building’ investment to improve the company's public image, both domestically in China and internationally. Despite possibly earning a 50 per cent return for its brief investment in Joey's model, the education business sector could enhance Kangda Group's image under the ‘better people, better life’ principle as part of the corporate social responsibility plan that it has been promoting through the current educational business project.
As its second goal, the company plans to build human capacity in the form of qualified human resources to provide for the company's future. Thus, sending young people and leading staff members abroad as pioneers is being prioritized to sustain the company's long-term business and gain international competitiveness in the global market. This plan also intends to change the company's employees’ traditional attitudes and cultivate a new focus on neoliberal entrepreneurial value in doing business based on global trends, as mentioned above.
In terms of employees, Joey makes reference to Chinese employees who have been experimenting with serving as start-up staff and in turn gaining more freedom and opportunities to experience outbound management and marketing provision. In particular, Joey has gained more experience with the challenges emerging in local settings and with finding ways to manage them. Hence, processes of strategy identification and challenge mitigation may need to be situated within local settings. Joey describes encountering difficulties finding connections for business ventures in Thailand due to being a newcomer. As suggested by numerous scholars focused on guanxi-Chinese networks and connections (e.g. Fei Reference Fei, Hamilton and Zheng1992; Gold et al. Reference Gold, Guthrie and Wank2004; Yang Reference Yang1994; Zheng Reference Zheng and Derenberger1986), Joey is one of many Chinese businesspeople who find Chinese networks helpful in business settings during the early stages of living in Thailand (Aranya Siriphon Reference Aranya and Santasombat2019: 271–290). However, unlike the literature on Chinese networks formed during the previous wave of Chinese migration which were based on local cultural traditions, Joey forged her Chinese connections through the new Chinese diaspora by utilizing her Chinese network to overcome the business constraints she encountered in Thailand in the beginning. She forged two Chinese connections through new Chinese diasporas sojourning in Chiang Mai: a couple who has worked in Chiang Mai for several years and the daughter of a Chinese officer working in Chiang Mai. The Chinese expatriates, who have spent many years in Chiang Mai, have supported Joey's education centre by registering the centre under Thai law, hiring local staff, renting a large house in the city at a less expensive rate and under a long-term contract agreement and assisting with the centre's interior decorating, for example.
However, Joey and her company will in the near future need to compete in an increasingly competitive emerging international education market in Chiang Mai. Market demand, especially from Chinese children seeking English-based education in Thailand since mid-2000, is increasing considerably. Today, Chiang Mai is home to the second highest number of international schools in Thailand, including English and bilingual programmes offered at some outstanding Thai schools, which are increasing in number.
Real Estate and the Senior Care Service Business
Wang's business of managing a four-star resort to serve Chinese seniors in Chiang Mai presents both an opportunity and challenge. Although the senior care service business is an emerging market that is addressing a very new trend of global ageing found in every society, the new market, Wang realizes, is relatively competitive, as growing numbers of senior care developers have been making considerable investment. This trend also carries cultural constraints regarding Chinese thinking and poses a challenge as this business must manage reputation concerns in terms of unprincipled and fair investment.
As a competitive challenge, in recent years, Chinese investors, real estate developers and construction companies have been considering opportunities in fast-growing real estate markets to support the elder care sector. Not only have Chinese investors invested in a new niche market in China serving China's very large market for senior care, but many Chinese investors have also been venturing overseas and partnering with local providers in Western countries and Asia, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, that offer on-the-ground expertise to take advantage of these opportunities. Chinese investors, real estate developers and construction companies have focused on Chiang Mai as a city that could represent a new niche market for investing in elder care for Chinese senior customers. Within the small city of Chiang Mai, at least fifteen senior care centres/retirement home companies from China are currently registered under Thai law. They were mainly established on the outskirts of the city in the Hangdong and Maerim districts from 2017 to 2019.
In terms of cultural constraints, according to Wang, this sector is currently quite new and not yet very attractive to Chinese seniors. This is the case because even though Chinese society has been in transition and shifting toward more modern family structures, the Chinese family structure is still highly influential in China. In particular, elderly individuals aged 60 to 70 years (born in the 1950s and 1960s) still actively subscribe to family ideals stating that family members should not be geographically separated. Although Chinese retirees over the age of 50–60 travel overseas, they only tend to do so temporarily to visit friends and relatives and for tourism purposes. Such individuals maintain the traditional view that after reaching 70 years of age, it is best to return home.
Given this cultural barrier, Wang, as reflected in his plan, states, “What I am doing now is not intended to earn money now, but 20 years later in my career”. His plan is to provide housing for wealthy Chinese seniors who are retiring over the next ten years. He is targeting Chinese seniors in the middle to high-end elder care segments, especially those from Shanghai, Beijing and other tier 1 and 2 metropolitan cities in mainland China.
There is a thin line between unprincipled and fair investment; there are generally four types of businesses involved in Chinese senior care in Thailand and Chiang Mai. Elder clubs are registered companies that recruit Chinese seniors as members who pay membership fees in exchange for organizing tours to Chiang Mai and other provinces in Thailand at a relatively low cost. Second, other Chinese companies produce expensive health care products for wealthy Chinese seniors and offer free vouchers to travel to Thailand and Chiang Mai. Third, elder care centres are supported by government-oriented policies and offer housing services designed to meet the needs of elderly Chinese individuals in the near future. Fourth, brokers and companies apply business models that merge ‘asset inventory platforms’ with investments and promise long-term benefits and services to their senior Chinese customers. In such operations, brokers and companies collect money from Chinese seniors or people wishing to invest in property by buying houses or accommodations now. Over the next 20 years, as those aged 60 and above retire, these Chinese investors in senior housing will enjoy maximized profits.
As for the fourth type of Chinese business based in Chiang Mai, some Chinese companies and real estate brokers engage in the housing business and provide care services and tourism packages for Chinese seniors but walk the thin line between unethical and fair investment and gambling and smart investment. In these companies, company staff select a remote area of Chiang Mai, buy the land and develop elder care centres. Then, the company or brokers create marketing materials and advertisements to attract Chinese customers. When Chinese customers agree to buy the housing, the company staff or brokers start collecting money from them in instalments. The advertised benefit, for example, is that first—before construction of the housing has been completed—customers enjoy an 8 per cent interest rate annually in the first stage of payment; and second, when the housing becomes available for retirees, Chinese buyers can rent their houses on a 20-year contract to property developers who promise that the buyers will earn the costs back within 5 years.
The brokers and companies managing real estate for senior care businesses are part of a broader crowdfunding trend, which is a financial innovation that has appeared in international business and particularly in Chinese business models (Funk Reference Funk2019). In Chiang Mai, real estate crowdfunding offers buyers/investors the ability to become shareholders of real estate property and then earn a portion of the profits generated from the real estate investment. Chiang (Reference Chiang2015) found that this model is used as part of a real estate business strategy by many Chinese developers who actively use such platforms to access potential homebuyers earlier on.
However, in Chiang Mai, future profits for Chinese customers do not appear to be guaranteed in practice due to uncertainty surrounding whether Chinese customers can receive eight per cent interest annually in the first stage of payment or five years of rental income back when renting out to developers. So far, service arrangements provided through contracts are unclear on whether Chinese buyers can secure the same property, services and comfortable facilities when travelling to Chiang Mai when their own property is unavailable.
The case study examining Wang and his mother company reveal the challenges faced when moving real estate and senior care services from China to Chiang Mai, including competition, cultural constraints and gaining a reputation for walking a thin line between deception and fair investment when business does not always go as expected in the beginning.
The Role of Government
Both the Chinese and Thai governments have played an important role in facilitating and regulating transnational business ventures. The Thai government has pursued the economic growth of Thailand as a destination country through foreign direct investment from China's business ventures by motivating foreign investors with several kinds of incentives. For example, corporate income tax exemptions, machinery and raw materials import duty incentives, land ownership for qualified foreign companies and other nontax incentives are widely granted. Investment promotion also involves investments in real estate, commerce, information and communication, senior care hospitals and/or dependent care services (Nagashima Ohno and Tsunematsu Reference Ohno and Tsunematsu2020). Additionally, the Thai government, in aiming to accelerate Thai economic growth, has implemented migration policies and invited international tourists, especially senior foreigners, to stay in Thailand for the short and/or long term. For example, Thailand has launched a one-year renewable visa for retirees over the age of 50 who put down a deposit of US$22,300. This policy is popular among Southeast Asian governments; for example, the Philippines has opened its doors to those seeking early retirement (those at least 55 years of age) with a US$20,000 deposit with the hope of encouraging 100,000 elderly or middle-aged Chinese to stay for the long term by 2020. The Malaysian government has also launched the “My Second Home” programme, which offers renewable 10-year visas to anyone over the age of 50 who puts down a deposit of US$33,700 or has a monthly pension of at least US$2250.
Although the Thai government has been proactive in developing policies to attract transnational businesses and foreign consumers, both the Thai government and the relevant Thai authorities have been less active and slow in taking effective legal action against the illegal activities and malpractices that have resulted in businesses and/or foreigners falling victim to scams and crimes in Thailand. For example, one elder care centre in Shanghai, China, operated by a Shanghai company and registered in the wholesale product sector, rented a condominium in Chiang Mai while waiting for construction in remote areas to be completed. The company had Chinese seniors staying in the condominium at the monthly rate of RMB 3000 and organized occasional activities with translation services in Chinese. Unfortunately, it was later discovered that the company was not authorized to organize tourist activities because its business was registered in the wholesale sector, thereby rendering the company an illegal tourism business that Thai authorities should have prosecuted. However, Thailand's judicial system has been slow to charge the company.
Comparatively, the Chinese state has been more active than the Thai government. For example, the Chinese state has been more effective at regulating crowdfunding in the Chinese real estate sector following Chinese legal principles. Beginning in 2014, when crowdfunding was becoming increasingly popular via the internet, the Chinese government legalized the oversight of crowdfunding activities in China. In 2015, this targeted a notorious fraudulent crowdfunding scheme organized by two Chinese men, Chang and Yang,Footnote 3 in Chiang Mai. The two Chinese men registered a company and raised funds online by fraudulently presenting a project to build a resort and other real estate projects in Chiang Mai. The men promised six per cent of dividends before the project's completion. However, after paying bonuses for two years, the two men disappeared. The so-called ‘project’ served as a front for their fraudulent activity. It is estimated that the men collected approximately RMB 20,000,000 illegally. Both were arrested in 2019. Apart from the regulation of crowdfunding, the Chinese government has also lent its support. For example, in 2015, Premier Li Keqiang identified an opportunity to use online crowdfunding platforms to promote national projects boosting the Chinese economy, by which the Chinese government is constrained. Li Keqiang hoped to encourage new financing channels to help fund small businesses that appear likely to boom through the country, especially in the fields of education, science and technology (China Daily 2015).
Conclusion
The new Chinese diaspora residing in Thailand today can be seen as a significant population that has transnationally migrated amidst changes in global capitalism and nation states. The two case studies presented here—an international education centre and a senior care service business moving from China to Thailand—demonstrate new trends in Chinese migration. They reflect the latest in the Chinese diaspora working with private Chinese companies conducting transnational business in Thailand, particularly in Chiang Mai Province, which is the most popular province for Chinese business ventures investing in emerging markets in northern Thailand.
The two case studies also illustrate how Chinese companies and their transnational businesses flexibly adopt multiple forms of employment and readily set up diverse business processes in response to new business lines and emerging market demand from both China and other parts of the globe. Combining intrapreneurs and intrapreneurship with the cultivation of entrepreneurial value among employees, professionals and co-partners in pursuit of transnational business has become a flexible strategy that reflects the increasing complexity of transnational entrepreneurship coming out of China. Hence, Chinese emigrants’ lives have intersected with flexible capitalism and neoliberal rationality encouraged by both companies and the Chinese state. Nonetheless, our two case studies reveal both the opportunities and challenges related to transnational business, which may not always go as expected in terms of achieving success in the business world.
Acknowledgements
This article is part of the study “New Chinese Diaspora and Transnational Mobile Practices in Chiang Mai, Thailand”, which falls under the umbrella of the research project “Transnational Chinese Diaspora in the Era of Globalization”, which is coordinated by Prof Dr Yos Santasombat, Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University, and received support from the Thailand Research Fund from 2018 to 2020.
