Analysts pointed out the underlying political and social reasons for the surge of people fleeing China, including many middle-class citizens.
Eight Chinese migrants have been found dead on a beach in southern Mexico after their boat capsized off the coast of Mexico, according to local authorities.
The tragedy occurred amid a sharp increase in the number of Chinese illegal immigrants risking their lives to escape the Chinese communist regime and reach the United States.
The Oaxaca prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the bodies of seven women and one man were found on March 29 on a beach in San Francisco del Mar, Oaxaca, along a dangerous route frequently used by people illegally entering the United States. The authorities are investigating the deaths.
The individuals set off on March 28 from Tapachula, Chiapas state, near the border with Guatemala. One male passenger survived, the Oaxaca prosecutor’s office said.
Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) implemented its draconian “zero-COVID-19” policy and lockdowns, an increasing number of Chinese nationals have risked their lives to flee China and enter the United States illegally through the tropical rainforests of South America and Mexico. U.S. government data show that in 2023, law enforcement arrested nearly 37,000 Chinese illegal immigrants entering the United States from the Mexican border, a number 50 times greater than that in 2021.
Tang Jingyuan, a U.S.-based current affairs commentator, told The Epoch Times on April 2 that there were three main reasons for the surge in the number of Chinese nationals illegally entering the United States.
First, the CCP’s draconian COVID-19 restrictions have caused many people to lose everything, with even their families being destroyed, according to Mr. Tang.
“Many people have begun to realize that the CCP disregards people’s lives and safety in order to achieve political goals, so they would rather flee,” he said.
The second reason is the political landscape. “The CCP authorities have further tightened control over speech in recent years, and the atmosphere resembling the Cultural Revolution in the country has become increasingly intense, which has made many people fearful,” he said.
The third reason is the economic outlook. The three-year lockdown has led to the collapse of many companies and created a large number of unemployed people, he said.
“After abandoning COVID-19 control policies, the CCP continued to promote economic internal circulation, etc., which didn’t help the recovery of the economy but further harmed the private businesses and small-business owners,” Mr. Tang said.
“The CCP’s erroneous economic policies have also led to continuous default in real estate developers and financial institutions. Many people have gone bankrupt and couldn’t pay their debts. They find it difficult to live a normal life [in China], so they would rather move far away from home.”Li Nian recently escaped from Guangxi Province in southern China to the United States with his wife and daughter. They were robbed a dozen times on the way, Mr. Li told The Epoch Times. However, he said, “everything is worth it to escape from the hellish Communist China.”
Before fleeing China, Mr. Li ran several foot-massage parlors, beauty parlors, and massage parlors in the city of Liuzhou, and earned a lot of money every month. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, his mother died after receiving a mandatory vaccination with vaccines produced domestically.
When Mr. Li was seeking justice for his mother, he was detained and interrogated by authorities. He was repeatedly asked to write a letter guaranteeing that he would not file a complaint and was deprived of sleep. After arriving in the United States, Mr. Li quickly joined street protests against the CCP’s tyranny.
International media have noted that many Chinese illegal immigrants are middle class with professional experience, such as engineers, teachers, entrepreneurs, and computer programmers.
According to Mr. Tang, some middle-class Chinese lack the resources of the wealthiest Chinese, who can immigrate to the United States legally, so they resort to paying smugglers to enter illegally.
Wang Juntao, chairman of the national committee of the Democratic Party of China and a U.S.-based political scientist, told The Epoch Times on April 2 that CCP leader Xi Jinping’s “zero-COVID” policy cost many middle-class Chinese employees their jobs, so they are now unable to pay their mortgage and car loans.
“The ‘zero-COVID’ policy hit these people the hardest. They were middle class before, but then they went bankrupt and became the new poor, owing debts that they could not pay,” he said.
Another factor driving the middle class to flee is Xi’s crackdown on “organized crime,” targeting some companies and entrepreneurs, Mr. Wang said.
“Once entrepreneurs are dragged into ‘organized crime’ cases, they have no way to redress their injustices or speak for themselves,” he said.
U.S.-based independent commentator Cai Shenkun told The Epoch Times on April 2 that Chinese nationals are fleeing for reasons including the pursuit of political and religious freedom, and the desire for a better education for their children.
The CCP will use the tragedy of the eight Chinese nationals in southern Mexico for propaganda, “but this will not have any impact on the Chinese who choose to flee,” Mr. Cai said. “They will try whichever way possible to escape from China.”
Mr. Wang also believes that this tragedy will not have a fundamental impact on the trend of Chinese escaping communist China.
“They already know the risks. They will still flee China to the United States,” he said.
Ning Haizhong and Luo Ya contributed to this report.