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Wealthy Chinese looking for an escape route from their native land — and there are hundreds of thousands in this class — received bad news last week: the Canadian government decided to terminate a deal that essentially allowed foreign millionaires to loan 800,000 Canadian dollars (or a little less than $730,000) to the Canadian state for five years in exchange for permanent residency. Ottawa’s cancellation of the immigrant-investor program means that 65,000 pending applications will be left unprocessed. The majority of these unprocessed visa appeals are from mainland Chinese. So what’s a poor rich Chinese to do now? The China Daily, the government’s English-language mouthpiece, described Canada’s cancelation as “unfair” in a Feb. 17 headline. But immigration agencies in Beijing, with their plush offices in the central business district, are hawking plenty of alternatives. One option lies just south of the Canadian border. Chinese who invest as little as $500,000 and employ 10 people in a rural or struggling part of the US can secure EB-5 investor visa, which can lead to green cards. Two major emigration consultancies in Beijing, Globe Visa and Cansine Immigration, are recommending the US now that Canada’s immigrant-investor option has shuttered. Then there are the financial laggards of the EU that are so desperate for a bailout that they are basically selling residency to cash-endowed Chinese for as little as $100,000. Count nations like Latvia, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus in this distressed category. With less cash than it takes to buy a tiny apartment in the outskirts of Beijing, Chinese investors can acquire residency in one European locale, as well as eventual freedom to roam most of the E.U. without a visa. | 
