Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

An interesting (but superficial) observation of the list of Canadian officers is how about 30-40% of the names sound Chinese while they represent only about 10% of the total population:

https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/search?c=CAN&cat=1&e=&j=&q=&u...

This must be a common tax/business strategy among Asian communities in Canada. Possibly due to the very large amount of Chinese real estate investors in Canadian properties in Vancouver and Toronto.

I suspect this would be enough to throw off recent statistics I've heard that claim the Chinese real estate investor boom is a 'myth' [1]. It's possible they just route the transactions through local shell companies so any surface level investigation into the buyers would make it appear that they are local.

[1] > In Canada, realtors do not tally foreign investment in residential real estate. However, the limited data compiled by research firms suggests the impact is negligible. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/scant-e...

There may be a bias due to the fact that the leaks are only from one law firm, which may have targeted regional markets. Business ties to Asia don't have to mean you were more likely to have offshore companies, but it may mean you were more likely to be a customer of Mossack-Fonseca.

Seems that way. Looking at the addresses sections for various countries shows a much higher percentage of Chinese companies compared to other countries:

    28,073 China
    21,041 Hong Kong
     6,860 United States
     5,534 Russia
     4,836 United Kingdom    
     4,125 British Virgin Islands
     3,253 Indonesia
     3,208 Switzerland
     1,438 Brazil
     1,312 Canada
       828 India

The ratio of HK to China is fascinating, considering their population, even wealthy population.

I suspect it's legacy from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_sovereignty_over_H... -- as a Vancouver native there was a massive influx of people from Hong Kong into Vancouver all through the early to mid nineties.

From wikipedia:

  Vancouver was among the most popular destinations, 
  earning the nickname of "Hongcouver". Richmond, a 
  suburb of Vancouver, was nicknamed "Little Hong Kong".

And it's happening again today due to the slowing of the Chinese economy

It could be a cultural artifact. I've heard it said in defense of shell companies, that if you live in a country where you're likely to be extorted for your wealth it makes sense to hide it. Immigrants to North America of all stripes, not just Chinese, are likelier to come from cultures where it's kneejerk-normal to hide wealth.

I don't agree that eyeballing a list of one law firm's clients says something about all Canadians of Chinese descent. If the data matches your eyeball estimate, it says something about only that law firm's clients.

I don't think that's what he's saying, and if any attempt to talk about the behavior of China's nouveau-riche -- a small, but comparatively very wealthy subset of Chinese investors in Canada -- is reduced to race-baiting about something which nobody seriously believes is characteristic of all Chinese immigrants (and which is the product of China's government's policies, not the investors' disposition) or for that matter even most of the recent ones -- after all, the vast majority of people are not wealthy -- then how can we ever reasonably discuss it?

> race-baiting

I didn't say or even think anything about racism.

> I don't think that's what he's saying

Then what do you think he/she is saying? Also, whatever group the commenter is talking about, my comment stands - this isn't really data about the larger group.

As I was entering various first names, the number of chinese surnames stood out to me as well.

How did you infer Korean from the names? I see barely any Korean names in the list.

I took OPs comment of "sound Chinese/Korean" to mean that OP was unable to distinguish Chinese and Korean names.

I interpreted OP as something like "East-Asian appearing names, but not Japanese since those are more distinctive to me."

Indeed, I'm familiar with the Japanese and Chinese distinction. Less so with Korean. I've replaced Chinese/Korean with just Chinese in my original comment.

Anyway, this is just a superficial observation as mentioned in the first sentence.

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