The EconomistJuly 20th 2019 China 372 an opening for other countries keen to at-
tract Chinese money, including a number
in Europe, such as Greece, Portugal and
Malta (which also offers citizenship).
These programmes offer the attraction of
visa-free travel around the 26-country
Schengen area of the European Union.
The European Commission and the
oecd, a rich-country think-tank, worry
that such schemes might provide cover for
money-laundering and tax evasion. They
have indeed been prone to scandal. The
eb-5 scheme has been dogged by allega-
tions of fraud, typically involving the em-
bezzlement of Chinese investors’ money.
And in Greece last year Chinese investors
were accused of complicity in a scam in
which a Greek developer bought properties
at market value and sold them at a big
mark-up to would-be investment migrants
in China (and partially reimbursed them).
There is another big problem for Chi-
nese investment migrants: Chinese ex-
change controls. These limit citizens to
sending $50,000 a year overseas—far less
than the investment demanded by most
rcbiprogrammes. So almost all Chinese
investment migrants are probably break-
ing Chinese law. The Greek developer
dodged the restrictions by the simple expe-
dient of using point-of-sale machines
linked to Greek banks to take money from
the credit cards of Chinese in China—a
breach both of Chinese law and the rules of
Greece’s golden-visa scheme.
The fuss this caused makes it unlikely
others will get away with it. But plenty of
shady avenues remain, such as pooling
$50,000 allowances with others; making
an arrangement with a Hong Kong resident
or foreigner in China; inflating invoices for
overseas payments; and cryptocurrencies.
rcbiprofessionals say they do not advise
their customers how to navigate China’s
exchange controls. They even deny knowl-
edge of how this is done. But they say cli-
ents do seem to be finding it more difficult.
Oddly, China has recently liberalised
the rcbi market. Last November it lifted a
requirement that rcbifirms obtain a li-
cence from the police. So competition has
become more intense. Some of this comes
from new entrants. But there may be a
more serious threat to incumbents, says
Christian Nesheim, editor of Investment
Migration Insider, a trade journal. Banks
and other wealth managers might be
tempted to poach rcbiprofessionals to of-
fer clients a fuller service, he says.
There is no sign of any slackening in de-
mand for such business. More people now
find golden-visa schemes affordable. Ever
since Deng Xiaoping a generation ago de-
creed (perhaps apocryphally) that to get
rich is glorious, those who have succeeded
in doing so have deemed it even more glori-
ous to get out—or at least to be able to. Mr
Tang has his eyes on Ireland. 7
T
he firsttime Wang Zhi performed in
drag, 17 years ago, it was in a seedy gay
bar three hours’ drive from his university
dorm. Today Mr Wang (pictured) says he
can make a tidy 2m yuan ($290,000) a year
from his cross-dressing routines. Remark-
ably, they have the Communist Party’s
blessing. He regularly appears on national-
ly televised variety shows. Officials often
invite him to entertain people in poor ar-
eas. In Xinjiang and Tibet, he boasts, he has
enraptured his ethnic-minority audiences.
Mr Wang’s success may seem surpris-
ing. In recent years the party has been try-
ing to sanitise or suppress any kind of cul-
ture that it does not regard as
wholesome—including art that challenges
conventional gender roles. Last September
Xinhua, a state-run news agency, con-
demned some male performers simply for
looking too feminine. Unusually, the
party’s main mouthpiece, People’s Daily, re-
torted that men should be judged by their
character, not appearance. But Xinhua’s
views reflected a conservative turn since Xi
Jinping became China’s leader in 2012.
Mr Xi, however, has allowed Mr Wang’s
style of drag to flourish. That is because it
has a long and respected history in tradi-
tional Chinese opera, an art form which Mr
Xi has been trying to promote. It used to be
that female operatic roles, or dan, were al-
ways played by men. Such acting requiresconsiderable skill as well as the wearing of
elaborate make-up and full-length tradi-
tional costume that leaves no skin showing
from the neck down.
The rigours that danspecialists histori-
cally endured in training were featured in
“Farewell My Concubine”, an award-win-
ning Chinese film released in 1993 (and
withdrawn two weeks later by prudish cen-
sors who allowed its re-release only after
some references to homosexuality were
cut). The film portrayed the ordeal of a dan
performer, from the 1920s when boys were
often selected for such roles at an early age,
to the puritanical era of Mao Zedong. The
protagonist finds himself confused by the
reality of his biological sex and the feelings
he harbours for his male co-star.
In Mr Xi’s China it is hard to imagine
such a film being made, let alone shown.
Danacting is fine, but art that explores gen-
der identity or sexual orientation is not. Mr
Wang says he is straight and asserts that
most Chinese men who earn money from
cross-dressing simply want to “beat wom-
en at their own game”. On WeChat, a Chi-
nese messaging service, Mr Wang main-
tains a chat-group for danenthusiasts. He
often tells them to keep their “private incli-
nations” a secret. “Our society still doesn’t
accept two men holding hands and kissing
in public, so you shouldn’t do it,” he says.
But Mr Wang and his internet followers
are not actors in traditional opera. They are
drag artists who merely don elaborate dan
costumes for effect—a nod to tradition that
seems enough to keep the party happy.
Some go further and undergo plastic sur-
gery to acquire features associated with
feminine beauty, such as wide eyes, a sharp
jawline or a high-bridged nose.
In his shows, Mr Wang often aims to
shock. A typical routine involves luring his
audience into thinking he is a woman, then
delivering a punchline in a manly voice. Mr
Wang is dismissive of men who still look
male in drag: they are simply yizhuangpi, or
transvestites, he says pejoratively.
Such views help Mr Wang to thrive in
the cultural chill. His female persona,
Wang Shangrong, has over 670,000 fans on
TikTok, a popular live-streaming platform.
Many of them are female. He says there
may be thousands of drag performers in
China who engage in his type of politically
correct cross-dressing.
Risks attend those who wear risqué
garb. Last year a video went viral of three
men in revealing drag being accosted by
police in the eastern city of Suzhou. Many
online comments on it supported the
cross-dressers, but Mr Wang says the police
were justified since the men were still
identifiable as male. “If I’m mocked, it’s be-
cause my feminine beauty isn’t convincing
enough,” he says. “Once we raise the stan-
dards of our performance, nobody will dare
to bully us.” 7BEIJING
Drag artists are tolerated if they look
like Chinese opera starsDolled up for the partyPolitically correct
cross-dressing
Standing up for traditional values