Jieyang

Jieyang runs on a business model that most economic textbooks ignore: diaspora capitalism. This eastern Guangdong city of over six million people sits in the Chaoshan region, homeland of the Teochew people—one of the most commercially successful diaspora networks on Earth. Teochew merchants control a disproportionate share of Southeast Asian commerce. Li Ka-shing, once the richest person in Asia, traces his roots to Chaoshan. The Charoen Pokphand Group, Thailand's largest private company, was founded by Teochew immigrants. This is not coincidence—it is network effects operating across centuries and oceans.

Locally, Jieyang's economy reflects a different pattern. The city is Guangdong's largest jade processing center, handling roughly 90% of China's mid-grade jade. Stainless steel hardware manufacturing clusters in specific townships, while textiles and garment production fill others. This township-specialization model—where individual towns dominate single product categories—mirrors how coral reef ecosystems partition resources, with each species occupying a precise niche to avoid direct competition.

But Jieyang's GDP per capita remains among the lowest in Guangdong Province, a paradox given the wealth its diaspora has generated abroad. The explanation is structural: capital and talent flow outward through kinship networks to places with better returns—Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong—while Jieyang receives remittances and cultural investment but not the productive reinvestment that would transform its domestic economy. This source-sink dynamic has persisted for centuries.

The city's future depends on whether it can reverse the flow—attracting diaspora capital back into local industries the way some Israeli and Taiwanese cities have successfully done. Jieyang's jade and hardware clusters provide the manufacturing base; the question is whether kinship networks that evolved for outward migration can be repurposed for homeward investment.