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Articles critical of investment visa programs have appeared in China’s state media, often highlighting fraud cases or stories of Chinese who faced trouble after going abroad. China has also tightened controls on how much money individuals and companies can move out of the country as part of broader efforts to stop the currency from further weakening.

Banks are expected to enforce more strictly the yearly limit of $50,000 that individuals are allowed to take out of the country, and will be required to report any transfers above $10,000. Still, Chinese have typically worked around such controls by slowly moving money or using friends and family members to help them amass an overseas account.

If China, which doesn’t recognize dual nationality, can’t keep entrepreneurs and middle-class families from leaving, it risks endangering its economic future. That includes people like Joey, a 30-year-old Beijing resident who works for a major Chinese state-owned conglomerate. He shared his story on the condition that his last name not be used because he hadn’t told his employer of his plans.

Joey and his fiancee have a two-bedroom apartment and plan to get married and have a child in China. Despite their seemingly bright future, they want to raise that child elsewhere. His friends and relatives helped him move enough money offshore to invest in the American EB-5 program.

Joey says he’s seen parents and children struggling to breathe outside in China’s smoggy air, and signs that China’s economy is headed for deeper trouble.

“In China, you have to plan ahead,” Joey said. “You cannot just leave today, whenever you want. You never know what happens next.”

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Associated Press researchers Liu Zheng and Yu Bing in Beijing and Fu Ting in Shanghai, and reporters Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, and data journalist Larry Fenn in New York contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to show that Nanjing is an eastern, not a coastal, Chinese city.