They left after the government cracked down on the private sector. They ran away from a harsh “zero COVID” policy. They searched for safe havens for their wealth and their families. They went to Singapore; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Malta; London; Tokyo; and New York — anywhere but their home country of China, where they felt that their assets and their personal safety were increasingly at the mercy of the authoritarian government. In 2022, a year that proved extremely challenging for China, many Chinese businesspeople moved abroad, temporarily or for good. They were part of a wave of emigration that led to one of the year’s top online catchphrases, “runxue,” understood to mean running away from China.