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Many people might wonder why a person living in a largely stable economy where the GDP per capita is roughly in line with the global average [such as in China] might choose to take so many risks to start a new life in a foreign country.

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Ling [a Chinese migrant who fled to Germany] started thinking about leaving China more than 20 years ago. But it wasn’t until the government’s harsh Covid-19 lockdown restrictions that he seriously considered taking action. During the pandemic he lost his job and saw his salary halve to 3,000 yuan (£326) a month as he picked up replacement work as a delivery driver. He grew increasingly uncomfortable with [his daughter] Feifei’s education, such as her being required to wear the red neckerchief of the Young Pioneers, the Chinese Communist party’s organisation for children aged six to 14. He was appalled when a teacher showed Feifei’s class videos portraying the US and western countries as “bullying China”.

“Education should be about teaching children how to love people around them and society, rather than promoting hatred and distorting the minds of children from an early age,” he says, adding that he felt discriminated against as a Christian.

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Crossing rivers and mountains for a new life in the west is known on Chinese social media as zouxian, or “walking the line”.

Wealthier Chinese are also abandoning their homeland for a new start in Europe. In February this year, Mou* and his family landed in Frankfurt for a transfer to Serbia. In the transfer hall, Mou called an emergency family meeting. We’re not going to Serbia, he told his three children, and we’re not going back to China either. Mou, his wife, their children and Mou’s parents approached Frankfurt airport staff and said they wanted to claim asylum. The plane tickets for the family of seven had cost more than 45,500 yuan.

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Pre-Covid, the 42-year-old businessman [Mou] enjoyed his life in China. He ran several food export companies, including a rougamo company that exported the popular Xi’an street food snack to the US. He owned several properties.

But the pandemic battered his business, and also his faith in the government. In 2022 he got into a fight with security officers because he refused to obey a lockdown order. He was detained for three days at the police station. Later, the police asked him to come back and “record some videos”. Mou refused to cooperate and was warned that his children’s future education would become “problematic”.

“My body was shaking when I got the call, full of fear and desperation … I immediately talked to my wife and said let’s leave,” Mou [said].

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Most of all, the new migrants hope that anti-immigration sentiment doesn’t take aim at them. “Germany has taken care of me when I have no job and am making no contribution,” says Ling, who is living on a government handout of 700 euros (£581) a month as he awaits the outcome of his asylum application. “I hope to become a legal citizen, to work and to pay taxes. If the country needs me one day, I would contribute without hesitation”.

*All names in the article have been changed.