“Crazy Rich Chinese" in Singapore
Why are Chinese netizens angry over Jack Ma's Wife buying Singapore properties; Chinese entrepreneurs' Singapore sojourns, and what's so great about Singapore?
The word of the week is Singapore.
Jack Ma’s wife, a Singapore citizen, recently went viral in China because she spent around $40M buying properties that look like the ones in the iconic Crazy Rich Asians scene; Hillhouse Capital's founder Zhang Lei switched his nationality from Hong Kong to Singapore; Shein and Hongshan’s founders are Singapore permanent residents. Other high-profile Chinese companies like Bytedance, Tencent, Alibaba, and iQIYI have set up international headquarters in Singapore. Notably, Dianping's founder, Zhang Tao, Tencent's co-founder, Zhang Zhidong, and ByteDance's founder, Zhang Yiming, have also relocated to Singapore in recent years.
What’s so great about Singapore? Why are Chinese companies expanding and growing their business there?
In my The Wire China op-ed, “The Dilemma of the China Shedding Strategy,” I talked about Hillhouse Capital and GGV Capital moving their Asia HQ to Singapore. Hillhouse took a wh…
