China’s Ultra-Rich Gen Zs Flock Home as Global Tensions Rise

For years, the Harvard College China Forum brought business moguls en masse to the university’s oak-paneled rooms, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder Jack Ma, Xiaomi Corp.’s Lei Jun, Blackstone Inc.’s Stephen Schwarzman and Bridgewater Associates LP’s Ray Dalio. There at the invitation of students, some of whom also happen to be the children of Chinese billionaires, the moneyed classes of the world’s two largest economies would hobnob every year in a lively exchange of ideas, demonstrating wealth’s power to bridge geopolitical rifts.

Such scenes are now fewer and far between. US-China tensions are so fraught, even the world’s richest are struggling to bring the two sides together. Only a handful of executives from mainland China came in person to this year’s China Forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As for the elite students who lifted the profile of the China Forum in the past, many are gravitating home.