I found the most popular news beat in China! Immigration. Many skills are involved and people are enormously interested. No, it's no longer about snakeheads or dish-washing jobs in Chinatown restaurants. The new tool sets include money transfers, maternity care and lots of sophisticated legal advice.

This discovery was based on a Chinese-language web article I wrote a few weeks ago. In three days, some 40,000 people clicked it for a read on Caixin's website and 230 left comments. These were my personal records. Ironically, then, my most popular professional writing was a short commentary triggered by a New York Times story on maternity immigration. The original piece described pregnant Chinese women who hid in house-turned-maternity care centers in California so that they could have U.S. citizen babies.  

You might think readers would slash the rich parents for their lack of patriotism. The reality was exactly the opposite. Out of the 200-plus comments, only three were critical of the practice, while others either blame the system that prompts such an exodus or encourages envy in green.

The point was further illustrated in an article this week when a survey conducted by the Merchants Bank and Bain Consulting showed 60 percent of the richest Chinese (those with net assets of 100 million yuan or more) have considered immigration, and 27 percent haven't already obtained foreign citizenship via investment. They have three reasons: children's education, asset safety and a better retired life.

Again, that piece generated super-high click and numerous reader replies.

A few years back, news like this would fuel widespread criticism, and much of that would hinge on the outflow of assets – the legality of their accumulation and the consequence of the outflow. But judging from comments on the recent article, today's readers overwhelmingly side with the survey takers and support their reasoning. Some even ask, "Why is the other 40 percent staying?"

Alas. Chinese don't want to stay in China. Those with means flee first.

But wait, take a second look, and you will find a clear sign of system arbitrage.

Chinese parents of U.S. citizen babies went through a lengthy procedure to buy an option. They return to China soon after delivery. All they want is their children, to some extent themselves, to have the right to choose citizenship 21 years later.

The rich Chinese all live and work in China, or they wouldn't have been in the survey's radar.

By obtaining foreign citizenship, people made a very strong statement of their judgments – bullish for China's short-term growth but bearish for long-term. They want to enjoy the current economic gain but are fully aware of its unsustainability, and hedge for a crash in the mid-term future.

The next question is what caused the lack of confidence? We tend to name hidden troubles for a decade or longer down the road that are caused by structural problems. In this case, people point to political rigidness and unfair allocation of rights and wealth. Even those who exploited the loophole for their personal gains voted with feet.

China brags about a reverse brain-drain in recent years. Many Chinese educated abroad migrated back for better development opportunities. But working in China is different from settling here. Their confidence for today's China is evident in their action, but for future's China is far from clear yet.

A bit about reader demographic for Caixin's Chinese website. Mostly men between 25 and 45, college graduates or higher, middle- or upper-middle income and above, heavy consumers of news, and often professionals in the finance and legal industries.

In an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal in March, Fukuyama said survey shows most Chinese think that "China is already democratic and profess to be satisfied with this state of affairs."

Many commentators worry about fervent nationalism in China. I'm sure you come across reports on that almost on a daily basis.

My sense is that middle class Chinese are better informed and more analytical than those described in the survey quoted by Fukuyama, and more pragmatic than the nationalistic gangs dominating popular web forums. Rhetoric aside, their actions show a passive demonstration. People vote with their feet, and start with their own generation if they can afford it.