Chinese migrants flock to Mexico in search of jobs, a future and, for some, a taste of freedom | The Times Of Update

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Despite her high-paying job in the tech industry, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked her to help run a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed her bags and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure.

The 30-year-old from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, hopes to one day start an online business importing furniture from her home country.

“I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want to be independent.”

He is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who leave their country looking for opportunitiesmore freedom or better financial prospects at a time when China’s economy has slowed downyouth unemployment remains high and its relations with the United States and its allies have deteriorated.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of the China’s New Migrant ProgramAn Associated Press look at life for the latest wave of Chinese emigrants settling abroad.

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As U.S. border patrol has arrested tens of thousands of Chinese at the U.S.-Mexico border over the past year, thousands are making the Latin American country their final destination. Many hope to start their own businesses, taking advantage of Mexico’s proximity to the United States.

Last year, the Mexican government issued 5,070 temporary residency visas to Chinese immigrants, twice as many as the previous year, making China third behind the United States and Colombia as a source of migrants granted such permits.

A deep-rooted diaspora that has fostered strong family and business networks over the decades makes Mexico call for new Chinese arrivals; the same is true of the growing presence of Chinese multinationals in Mexico, which have established themselves to be close to the markets of the Americas.

“A lot of Chinese people started coming here two years ago, and these people need to eat,” says Duan Fan, owner of Nueve y Media, a restaurant in Mexico City’s upscale Roma Sur neighborhood that serves spicy cuisine from Sichuan, his native province.

“I opened a Chinese restaurant so people could come here and eat like they would at home,” he said.

Duan, 27, arrived in Mexico in 2017 to work with an uncle who owned a wholesale business in Tepito, near the historic center of the capital, and was later joined by his parents.

Unlike previous generations of Chinese who came to northern Mexico from Guangdong province in southern China, the new arrivals are more likely to come from all over China.

Data from the latest 2020 census from Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography show that Chinese immigrants are mainly concentrated in Mexico City. A decade ago, the census recorded the largest concentration of Chinese in the northernmost state of Baja California, on the U.S.-Mexico border across from California.

The arrival of Chinese multinationals brings an influx of “people from eastern China who are more educated and have broader international experience,” said Andrei Guerrero, academic coordinator of the China-Baja California Center…