ExclusiveCHINA: CAPITAL EXODUS FROM BEIJING - WAGE PROTESTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY

In-depth analysis newsletter, November 13th, 2025. Today, global markets revolve around three main themes, the temporary resolution of the political deadlock in North America, an international case precedent on digital financial crime that is puzzling European legal experts, and the exodus of foreign capital from China, forcing the country's government to require the private sector to shoulder macroeconomic risks. Welcome to Unseen Ledger. China, capital exodus from Beijing, wage protests across the country. Foreign capital exodus, Beijing, summons the private sector to bear macroeconomic risks. Chinese economy, three weakening drivers. Sharp decline in exports. China Customs data shows that October export turnover fell by 1.1% compared to the same period last year. This decline is a sharp contrast to September's strong 8.3% growth and is much lower than the market forecast of 3%. The three main drivers, consumption and investment exports, have all been in decline in recent years, leading to continuous weakening of the Chinese economy. Record foreign capital withdrawal. Deteriorating investment environment. Political economist Dr. Tong Zhenyuan, Taiwan's representative to Singapore, stated that foreign investment data for Q3-2025 is even lower than the period before China joined the WTO, 1998-2001. He believes the investment environment is reverting to a pre-WTO state. Loss of trust. The Milken Institute notes that while China is large, it is too controlled and lacks transparency, making it impossible to fully trust. Over the past two years, China has witnessed a record capital withdrawal at a speed unseen in decades. Transition from attraction to withdrawal. Net FDI peaked at 107.2 billion USD in Q1-2022. However, by Q2 and Q3-2024, net FDI turned negative at minus 14.97 billion and minus 11.62 billion USD, respectively. This means that foreign capital is not only ceasing to inject funds but is also pulling money out, indicating a severe drop in confidence. Causes. Domestic real estate downturn. Decreasing domestic demand. And tension with the U.S. causing deflationary pressure via inflation. The warning. CCP's actions. Commitments to further opening up to attract foreign investment. Simultaneously, the publication of Xi Jinping economic thought and a series of measures to promote the development of private investment. Jiang Feng's commentary. Current affairs commentator Jiang Feng summarizes this strategy with eight characters. The top issues scriptures. The bottom provides the wallet. General mobilization order for the private sector. Jiang Feng argues that these measures are not encouragement but rather a summons, Zheng Zhaoling. The government is encouraging private capital to participate in heavy industry sectors and large-scale investment areas, heavy assets, previously reserved for the national team, state-owned enterprises, such as railways, nuclear power, and urban infrastructure. The government also specifically designated capital-intensive sectors like low-altitude economy, commercial aerospace, digital economy, and AI as areas where private enterprises must be the pioneering core force. Risk is being transferred. This leads to Jiang Feng's warning. If the vehicle overturns on the road, who will bear the risk? Wage protests erupt across China. The withdrawal of foreign capital and exports, the main growth engines for Beijing for decades, have begun to decline, fueling rising unemployment. Social instability is therefore surging dramatically across the world's second-largest economy. According to Renminbao, People's Daily, based on newly published data from the General Administration of Customs of China, October export turnover fell by 1.1 percent compared to the same period last year, a complete reversal from the strong 8.3 percent growth in September and much lower than the market forecast of a 3 percent increase. The three main drivers of China's economic growth—consumption, investment, and exports—have all declined sharply in recent years, causing the country's economy to weaken continuously. Many businesses have been forced to close or halt production. Even surviving companies have to cut wages, default on salaries, and lay off staff. Facing this situation, workers are compelled to stand up and demand their legitimate rights. Notably, even state-owned enterprises, SOEs, and public institutions have begun pressuring employees to voluntarily resign, bringing China's economic problem into the spotlight of international public opinion. According to Newtalk News, the ex—formerly Twitter account—named Zuo Tianzi yesterday reported that from October 30 to 31, hundreds of workers from the China Chemical Engineering No. 11 Construction Soyuz Ltd. Zhonghua Shi Yijian staged a collective strike at the BASF Jiangjiang Integrated Chemical Complex project in Guangdong Province, demanding the company pay their overdue wages. Some workers clashed with the company's management. A striking worker stated that the company had not paid salaries for five consecutive months, and some who had already quit their jobs in Jiangsu even had to return to Jiangjiang to join the demand for wages. The Zuo Tianzi account added that the BASF Jiangjiang project is a large-scale chemical production complex by the BASF Group, Germany, the company's third-largest global project, which was announced in July 2018 and officially broke ground in November 2019. Because this project involves foreign investment, many netizens paid special attention. Some comments suggested that BASF surely does not owe the Chinese contractor any money, thus raising the question, if the capital has been dispersed, where did the workers' wages go? Many others believe that government investment projects are currently headed by China-prefixed SOEs, which then multilayer subcontract to private enterprises. Even when they receive the money, the SOE headquarters has spent most of it, leaving very little by the time it reaches the project level, making the situation of workers' wage arrears widespread. The ex-account Li Laoshi Bushe Ni Laoshi also shared news of many other wage disputes across China. On October 10th, a ceramic factory in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, saw a dispute over overdue wages, with a large number of workers gathering at the city government headquarters to demand their rights. Following this, on October 11th, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangdong, and Bengbu, Anhui, also saw other waves of wage protests, ranging from tech company employees blocking building entrances to workers' ode, 10 months of salary having to sell factory equipment to make ends meet, with some even threatening to jump from a building to demand payment. In addition, in Suihua and Hailun cities, Heilongjiang Province, public institutions have also been defaulting on employee wages. On November 11th, a netizen complained that public welfare jobs, Gongyi Gong, in these two localities were owed up to seven months of salary and were then asked to voluntarily resign and were denied unemployment certificates. The goal is to force workers to forfeit the owed wages and prevent them from receiving unemployment benefits. After the information spread, Chinese public opinion was extremely outraged. One person commented that he had thought, forced resignation, denial of unemployment certificates, only happened in the private sector. I never expected that even state-run entities would use such dirty tricks. Another person who works as a community grid manager, Wang Guiyuan, reported being owed more than 20 months of salary, working for free for nearly two years. Many others reported similar situations, being owed over 10 months of salary, with even medical staff at public hospitals being caught up in this wave of wage arrears. North American Policy and Market Risks U.S. ends longest government shutdown in history The 43-day U.S. federal government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, ended after President Donald Trump signed a funding bill. The deadlock in failing to reopen the government early resulted in hundreds of thousands of federal employees being furloughed, disrupting vital welfare programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, affecting over 40 million people, and causing severe chaos in air traffic. Furthermore, the U.S. government shutdown also interrupted the publication of key economic indicators, such as October unemployment and CPI data. Expert Michael Landsberg warns that when the fog lifts, the market will know whether the current positioning is accurate or if a major repricing is necessary. The lack of data has increased uncertainty regarding monetary policy. Some fund managers anticipate the possibility of a December Fed rate cut will reemerge, strengthening a risk-on environment, especially for large technology stocks. However, Boston Fed President Susan Collins still advocates for keeping the interest rate stable at 3.75% to 4% due to continued strong growth. Healthcare stocks decline due to risk of Obamacare subsidies cut. The agreement to end the government shutdown failed to secure the extension of the ACA slash Obamacare premium tax credits, which are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. This news caused a sharp drop in the shares of major health insurance companies. Centene Corpain fell 8.8%, Oscar Health Inc. dropped 17.5%, and Molina Healthcare Inc. declined 7.3%. Millions of Americans could face a sharp spike in insurance premiums. Extending the subsidies for another year until 2026 is estimated to cost $23.4 billion U.S. dollars. President Trump and Senator Bill Cassidy are promoting alternative plans, such as transferring funds directly into the accounts of enrollees instead of paying the insurance companies. However, Democratic leaders such as Senator Ron Wyden remain skeptical. Capital flows and international financial case precedence. 4.6 billion pound cryptocurrency fraud when the scale of the crime exceeds the current legal framework. The sentencing of Zhimin Qian, dubbed the crypto fugitive, at Southwark Crown Court this week concluded one of the most complex economic crime investigations ever undertaken by Scotland Yard. However, for the global financial and legal community, the case raises unprecedented questions about the ownership of seized digital assets and cross-border compensation mechanisms. Scale of the fraud and pure greed as a motive. Qian, a 47-year-old Chinese national, was sentenced to 11 years and 8 months in prison in the UK for organizing a multi-billion pound Ponzi scheme. Prosecutors stated that from 2014 to 2017, Qian defrauded over 128,000 victims, primarily in China, with many losing their life savings, totaling 4.6 billion pounds in losses. Judge Sally Ann Hales emphasized that the scale of her money laundering is unprecedented and confirmed Qian's motive was pure greed. Gillian Jones, KC for the prosecution, told the court that victims suffered financial collapse and ruined marriages and families. This is a classic example of the societal devastation that accompanies large-scale fraudulent financial schemes. The intersection of crime and digital assets. This case became the largest value money laundering case ever tried in the UK, primarily due to the role of Bitcoin. After attracting the attention of Chinese authorities, Qian fled to Myanmar in July 2017 by motorcycle, carrying a large amount of illicit assets in the form of cryptocurrency on a laptop. The world's largest seizure. The London Metropolitan Police seized 61,000 Bitcoin stored on electronic devices in 2018. At the time, this amount of Bitcoin was valued at over 300 million pounds. However, due to the surge in Bitcoin's price, the assets are now valued at approximately 5 billion pounds. This is the largest confirmed cryptocurrency seizure by a law enforcement agency worldwide. Money laundering method. The case clarifies how criminals use cryptocurrency to conceal the origin of assets. Qian used a fake passport to travel through Thailand, Laos, and finally to the UK, carefully avoiding countries with extradition treaties with China. She used brokers to convert Bitcoin, load funds onto prepaid cards, and indulged in lavish spending, including renting an apartment in Hampstead for 17,333 pounds per month and Legal precedent for cross-border assets. This colossal amount of Bitcoin is currently the subject of separate civil proceedings in the High Court. The legal battle is between the UK authorities and thousands of defrauded Chinese investors. The victims assert that the British state should not profit from the seized funds. The outcome of this civil lawsuit will establish an important international legal precedent, determining the mechanism for handling digital assets seized from international criminal activities, and simultaneously setting the standard for cross-border victim compensation. The Ximen Qian case is not just a story of individual crime, it is also a wake-up call about the lack of alignment in international law regarding digital assets, as the scale of money laundering cases has now surpassed the existing legal framework. You've been watching Unseen Ledger, where we turn data into insight and insight into advantage. Tell us in the comments what stories or topics you'd like us to explore next. Your perspective helps shape our next episode. If today's report gave you a new way of seeing the market, please like, share, and subscribe so you never miss what's hidden behind the numbers. Unseen Ledger, where the numbers speak, we make them confess.