Thai haven a big draw for Chinese seeking freedom
There are the hipsters cramped by big-city life, the tech bros pumped about the internet of tomorrow, and idealistic parents wary of China’s hyper-intensive schools and then there are the stoners.
Chiang Mai, a backpacker town in the mountains of northern Thailand, has become the destination of choice for a slew of Chinese seeking respite from the increasingly repressive Communist Party at home.
Huge billboards advertise international schools and mansions in Chinese characters. A Chinese-language menu is on offer at nearly every cafe, restaurant and weed store in the old town. There are Mandarin-speaking doctors, delivery drivers and police officers. The stalls at the night markets accept Chinese digital payment apps.
That’s because many of these Chinese arrivals are not just passing through. They’ve come to stay.
“Back home in China, many feel exploited and restricted, as if they were cash crops in a big plantation,” said Gloria Yafan Niu, a researcher at Chiang Mai University who studies migration and gender, and has lived there since 2018. “But here in Chiang Mai, you just do you and be a tree or a reed or a flower, and find a balanced life with relatively low cost and high quality.”
As freedoms – of expression, of thought, of association – have steadily been eroded in China since President Xi Jinping took control of the country just over a decade ago, free-thinking Chinese have looked for havens of intellectual exile. For a while, that place was Dali, the town in southwestern China that became known as “Dalifornia” because of its stunning landscape, burgeoning tech scene and tradition of relative tolerance.
But these days, even Dali is becoming inhospitable for digital nomads and burned-out urbanites, their suspected techno-anarchic tendencies drawing unwelcome scrutiny. This means many people are continuing further south, to Chiang Mai.
Here, they sound out new ideas, embrace various countercultures, and build communities considered undesirable in China under Xi.
“When I turned on television, opened newspapers or browsed social media in China, all I heard was one person talking,” said Pu Jianchuan, a 50-year-old stockbroker and Bitcoin investor, referring to Xi. “It was chilling.”
Xi was “closing the door” to the world, said Pu, who moved to Chiang Mai early last year and now lives in a villa on the outskirts, citing the harsh Shanghai “zero Covid” lockdown and draconian crackdowns on tech giants, tutoring and cryptocurrency.
Thailand’s warm climate, easygoing charm and relaxed visa regime have long appealed to Chinese tourists. But starting in 2022, as China’s Covid lockdowns dragged into a third year, the country took on a new allure for those wanting to run away from a difficult situation at home.
That year, 110,000 Chinese nationals applied for long-term Thai visas – twice as many as the year before, according to an analysis of Thai immigration data. This has surged further since Thailand granted visa-free entry to Chinese citizens in September.
Some are from the wealthy elite that decided to relocate away from China’s coronavirus restrictions. But many are young, middle-class and educated. There are digital nomads, artists and chefs who came on a whim and a shoestring.
They cite all sorts of reasons for making the move, but there is usually a push of concern about the situation at home, combined with the pull of free, easy and relatively cheap living. Many don’t know when or whether they will leave.
On the final evening of 2023, an alley just outside Chiang Mai’s old town, with its red brick walls and moat, was heaving with young Chinese singing and dancing in the new year. A Chinese DJ played techno to a crowd sipping Chinese-made craft beers. The smell of cannabis wafted through the air as tech workers from Shanghai and Shenzhen attempted TikTok dances.
The New Year’s Eve party was organised to mark the end of Wamotopia, half tech conference, half carnival, which - like many of those present – moved from Dali to Chiang Mai. More than 500 people – engineers, entrepreneurs and designers, blockchain developers, digital marketers and spiritual gurus – enjoyed two weeks of intense discussions in Chinese and carefree partying.
Wamotopia was “not political”, said Lin, an organiser in his mid-20s who spoke on the condition that only his surname be used, to avoid reprisals from Chinese authorities.
But the stifling political environment in China was an undercurrent in discussions. One invitation-only session was billed as group therapy for people traumatised by China’s lockdowns and persecution of protesters.
Events like Wamo, and the recent opening of a Chinese-language bookstore, suggest that this migration is not a fleeting phenomenon but may have staying power.
The bookstore – ambiguously called Nowhere in English, and Feidi (enclave) in Chinese – was founded by Zhang Jieping, a Chinese journalist known for her role creating outlets for independent Chinese writing. It is quickly becoming a hub for in-depth intellectual chats and forming bonds with locals or the broader Chinese-speaking community.
The growing expatriate community’s rising profile comes with risks, however.
Even 1600km from China’s border, unidentified Chinese speakers showed up to Wamotopia, took photos and questioned attendees, stoking fears that the events were being monitored.
Attention from Chinese authorities is especially concerning for those who chose Thailand purely to try out a kind of living different from the Communist Party-approved mainstream, rather than out of any notion of political dissent.
In China, because politics was basically barred from public-facing life, people focused on “how do I define myself and what kind of life do I want to live?”, said Niu, the Chiang Mai University researcher. She moved there in 2018 for doctoral studies, and stayed so she could send her daughter Cynthia, now 7, to international school and keep her out of China’s intense educational system.
After the pandemic, more families came to seek a better quality of life and affordable international education, she said.
Some have motives that are a touch less idealistic. One design student in his late 20s came to study in Thailand after being expelled from a Chinese university for smoking weed. Cannabis being legal in Thailand means he can now get stoned as much as he wants.
Others came because they didn’t fit in at home in other ways.
In 2019, Eddy Lee left Hong Kong – where Beijing has increasingly asserted itself across all aspects of life – as mass protests were engulfing the territory. The 38-year-old chef opened a restaurant in Chiang Mai, selling traditional Cantonese dumplings and other dim sum.
“Chiang Mai is for sure a good place to enjoy your later years,” she said, noting how Thailand was much more tolerant to members of the gay community, like her and her partner.
Some see the influx as a mixed blessing, fearing that Beijing may use its influence to establish a stronger presence in Thailand. But Lee reckons the Chiang Mai community will survive extra scrutiny and “whatever the Chinese government wants to do”.
“We will still find ways to live,” she said.