These are bittersweet times for Chinese private entrepreneurs. A double whammy of debt deleveraging and the U.S.-China trade war has hit Chinese private entrepreneurs especially hard.
The number of Chinese companies filing for bankruptcy, nearly all privately owned, rose 60% in 2018 and is expected to jump by another 20% this year. A Purchasing Managers' Index tracking private manufacturing companies' activities in China showed that they contracted in December last year -- the first time since May 2017. A survey of 224 Chinese citizens with an average net worth of $4.5 million conducted by the Hurun Research Institute in China last June found that a third were considering emigration.
