China's middle class is projected to reach 40% of the population in 2020, twice the proportion at the turn of the century, according to the International City Development Report released jointly by the Social Sciences Academic Press and Shanghai Academy of Social Science more ›

The above infographic, provided by the Gravity Group, is a brief summary of the hits and percentages that make up the Chinese box office totals for last year. more ›

Chinese nationals accounted for the largest share of luxury goods sales in overseas markets during the month of January, with total sales of approximately $7.2 billion USD recently. The amount sees the a nearly 30 percent increase from the same period last year, when Chinese on vacation spent $5.6 billion USD on luxury items. more ›

Shanghai has topped the Brookings Institution's list of the world's 200 largest metropolitan areas who collectively comprise almost half the world's economic activity. more ›

The time isn't ripe for Shanghai's financial hub to allow foreign companies into its equity market, according to Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng. The statement marks a delay of two months in China's aspirations to become a global financial powerhouse by 2020. more ›

BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries have contributed to almost half of global growth in the past decade, but their high times may be over as they face an aging labor market. The major effects in demographics are already beginning to be seen in China, where its one child policy is holding itself back from growing a strong young labor force, thus raising doubts on how to fund its growing pension bill. more ›

China wrote history this week after gaining approval for oil exploration in the Amu Darya Basin in Afghanistan, making it the first international oil deal made by Afghanistan with a foreign country in several decades. more ›

China is about to face a challenging upcoming year amid lingering fears concerning a global financial meltdown. Declining property prices and a severe trade situation are raising serious concerns regarding the economic stability of the backbone of the world economy. more ›

Attention, anxious highly-skilled proletarians of Western Civilization! New plans to attract overseas professionals to Shanghai have just been announced, with companies looking for specialized talent to offer minimum yearly salaries of 300,000RMB ($47,160 USD) and benefits. In addition, newly arrived foreign experts would also be granted preferential visa treatment and priority status for permanent residency permits, according to local officials. more ›

Hong Kong has officially entitled itself as most developed financial market in the world after it jumped from fourth position to first on the World Economic Forum index of financial market development. Beating out the established UK and US leaders, it has become the first Asian financial center ever to top the index. more ›

Phil Inman argues on The Guardian: "China is a one-trick pony. Without the US and Europe to soak up its factory output, it doesn't have a growth plan. Except that isn't quite true. Like Japan in the 1980s and the UK in the decade before the boom, it has a liking for property investment. As a sideline to its enormous manufacturing sector, there is an ever-expanding apartment and office-building craze." more ›

The current wave of strikes and demonstrations continued this week, as more than 100 workers blocking a Tesco store in the city of Jinhua in Zhejiang province. Shoppers were prevented from entering the shop by the staff, who boldly blocked and barricaded the entrances and exits, while holding up banners with messages, including ''We want to protect our rights...Return our blood and sweat money.'' more ›

"I wake up this morning and find the radio, TV and print media all going on and on about how the property market is entering a winter season as real estate prices tumble. I don't understand -- are these macroeconomic adjustments here to help stabilise economic development, or are they here just to make property prices fall? Is there any country in history that has managed to grow its economy stably after a property bust?" more ›

The nightmare is now officially over, hooray! Vending machines that dispense gold bars will debut in Beijing on the 23rd of September, with bars weighing up to 2.5 kilograms. The machines will apparently work just as normal ATM's do, only with the added sense of security that comes from leaving an ATM with an assault-grade brick of gold in one's back pocket. The machines will accept cash and credit cards in exchange for gold, and will be available in upscale clubs and private banks. Which is great, because we always thought putting an expensive cellphone on a table at a bar to show off was so October to mid-December of 2009. At last, an alternative. Rejoice. more ›

Get rich quick scheme of the day: Travel back in time to 2005 with sacks full of Benjamins, exchange them for renminbi, and presto-money-changeo, you're rich! "The renminbi (RMB), China's official currency, set a new high for the second day to a ratio of 6.4536 yuan per US dollar on Thursday. It indicates a 22-percent increase after the country launched exchange reforms on July 21, 2005. The ratio was 8.11 yuan per US dollar when the reforms were launched six years ago. China abandoned a decade-old peg to the US dollar by allowing its currency to fluctuate against a basket of currencies on July 21, 2005. The reforms were suspended in a bid to fight the global downturn in 2008. The yuan exchange rate again was pegged to the dollar at a ratio around 6.83 from September 2008. The peg was lifted on June 19, 2010, when the central bank announced further yuan exchange rate formation mechanisms." [China Daily] more ›

The skeptics who believe China's economy is overheated must be doing a little dance right now: 'Local governments had an overall debt of 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.65 trillion) by the end of 2010, said China's top auditor on Monday in a report to the National People's Congress. It was the first time the world's second-largest economy publicly announced the size of its local governments' debts. The scale amounts to more than one-quarter of its GDP in 2010, which stood at 39.8 trillion yuan. Among the debt, local governments have an obligation to repay 6.7 trillion yuan, or more than 62 percent of the total debt, and they underwrote loans of 2.3 trillion yuan, nearly 22 percent of total debt. Beijing planned to clean up billions in local government debt by shifting 2-3 trillion yuan of debt off the books of local governments, Reuters reported, quoting anonymous sources. Fitch Inc, a major international rating institution, lowered its outlook of China's long-term local-currency rating to "negative" from "stable" in April, saying there is a high "likelihood of a significant deterioration" in banks' asset quality within three years.' [China Daily] more ›

China Premiere Wen Jiabao has a piece in today's Financial Times about China's economy. He says in the article (most of which is behind the FT's paywall, grr!) that China is capable of sustaining fast economic growth and that it has brought inflation under control. more ›

Constructing a heightened personal aura through purchasing pricey baubles just got that much easier: "China, already the world's second-largest luxury goods market, will soon slash import duties on opulent items to encourage wealthy local shoppers to buy more pricey cosmetics, watches and liquor, Chinese media said on Monday. Citing unidentified sources, the paper said China's finance ministry may unveil a revamped tax system before the National Day holiday in October so that Chinese consumers can buy luxury brands such as Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton at home over the Christmas and New Year holidays. With the new taxes, duties on imported cosmetics, milk powder, watches, clothes, suitcases and shoes are expected to be reduced or even scrapped entirely, it said. Owing to hefty import taxes, prices of 20 luxury brands of watches, suitcases, clothes, liquor and consumer electronics in the Chinese mainland are 45 percent higher than those in Hong Kong, 51 percent higher than US prices, and 72 percent higher than French prices, a study by China's commerce ministry showed." [China Daily] more ›

We all knew that China is going to be the world's largest economy -- it's not a question of if but when. Earlier estimates suggested this was going to happen sometime around 2030 but according to the International Monetary Fund's latest bombshell, the "Age of America" is going to end, and the "Age of China" will begin in 2016. That's when the IMF now expects China's economy to become the world's number 1 economy by GDP (purchasing power parity). CNN's Ramy Inocencio explains how.
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Economists have long said that India's economy will some day grow faster than China's. Will 2012 be that turning point? This year, the World Bank expects China's economy to slow down to 8.7% from 10% last year as the government seeks to unwind fiscal stimulus, place restrictions on overheating sectors and tighten monetary policy. more ›

Jim Chanos has never visited my friend's neighborhood, but he would love it. It is the apotheosis of everything he says is wrong with the Chinese real estate market, which more than a year ago, the influential short-seller famously outlined. more ›

In case you were curious: The average monthly wage for Shanghai workers in 2009 was 3566RMB, an increase of 8.3% from last year's 2008. While the wage still went up, however, it was the lowest average wage growth figure recorded in the last decade. By comparison, last year's wages went up from the year befores by 13.8%, and the year before that it shot up 17.4%. Guess Shanghai wages were also a victim of the recession. more ›

It's no secret that housing prices are intensely inflated in China. But as the economy picks back up, people are beginning to pay attention and even worry about the consequences of a housing bubble similar to the one that's ravished the U.S. economy. more ›

After a good twenty-six years in the making, construction on the world's largest sea bridge finally began today. Connecting Hong Kong and Macau to Zhuhai, the Y-shaped bridge is being built in order to facilitate commerce and transportation between the old colonies and the mainland. The bridge will span 50 kilometers, 35 of which will be over water, and will cost nearly 73 Billion yuan split three ways. The project is pretty massive, but should make gambling business ventures a lot easier. more ›

We don't particularly like it when Time Magazine chooses abstract notions or groups to give its "Person of the Year" award to: it feels contrived and too nebulous to really serve as an honor to anyone, and shows a little too much sensationalism for our clearly refined palates. Then again, we might just be bitter that we didn't get a special mention for 2006's social media-centric "You" Person of the Year award when Wang Xiaofei got one. In any case, the shortlist of this year's candidates is out, and some very notable Chinese people are on it. By our count, there's nearly 800 million on the list. more ›

Despite fears of the great economic recession destroying China's economy with the rest of the world, the average disposable income for Shanghai residents rose 8% since last year to 21,871RMB per person. That only counts for city residents, but even those not lucky enough to have the right hukou have still seen their annual salary raise: the average income for city dwellers is 15,051 RMB, which is 4.4% higher than last year. We've got some ideas, but what do you think all that extra pocket cash is being spent on? more ›

• China's rivers of cash flowing wrong way [Sydney Morning Herald] "On Thursday, the National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Li Xiaochao had been comfortably batting away curly questions from the international media about what lay beneath China's spectacular headline GDP growth of 8.9 per cent through the year. But one question from Shanghai's Oriental Post tied him hopelessly in knots: "What is the amount and growth rate of consumption expenditure for government administration, compared with last year?" The journalist was asking how much of China's spectacular retail sales growth - 17 per cent after adjusting for falls in prices - was simply the bureaucracy taking advantage of the fiscal stimulus to spend more money on itself."
• Salute All Cars, Kids. It’s a Rule in China [NY Times] "All the students at Luolang Elementary School, a yellow-and-orange concrete structure off a winding mountain road in southern China, know the key rules: Do not run in the halls. Take your seat before the bell rings. Raise your hand to ask a question. And oh, yes: Salute every passing car on your way to and from school."
• China and America: The odd couple [The Economist] "IT HAS become a tedious tradition for Westerners dealing with China to garnish their speeches with wisdom from the Chinese classics. Barack Obama, addressing Chinese and American leaders in July, used not just a banal quotation from Mencius, a Confucian sage, but a punchier one from Yao Ming, a Chinese basketball player: “No matter whether you are new or an old team member, you need time to adjust to one another.” Though it is 30 years since the two countries re-established diplomatic ties severed by the Communist takeover, both sides still badly need to adjust…"

• China's 8.9% Growth? No Way [Forbes]"On Oct. 22, Beijing announced that gross domestic product grew by 8.9% in the third quarter of 2009 compared with the corresponding period last year. The National Bureau of Statistics also reported that growth for the first three quarters was up 7.7%. How could it not have been? Since last November, Beijing has spent perhaps as much as $900 billion-from its own funds as well as those of the larger state banks-to jump start its $4.3 trillion economy. No government can disburse that amount of cash without creating some economic activity."
• China's push for oil in Gulf of Mexico puts U.S. in awkward spot [LA Times]"China's push to enter U.S. turf comes four years after CNOOC's $18.5-billion bid to buy Unocal Corp. was scuttled by Congress on national security grounds. The El Segundo oil firm eventually merged with Chevron Corp. of San Ramon. Whether CNOOC's second attempt to lock up U.S. petroleum assets will trigger a similar political backlash remains to be seen. The sour U.S. economy and the need for Washington and Beijing to cooperate on potentially larger issues could mute any outcry."
• The story of China Incorporated [China Daily] "Twenty-five years ago, Megatrends was a must-read for any Chinese who was keen to know about the world - not just the world as it was, but the world that would be. And that included higher officials who were unaccustomed to foreign theorizing other than that by Marx and Lenin. By some estimate, the book sold some 20 million copies in China. The original English version was published two years earlier, in 1982, and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for two years. Last month, John Naisbitt, the author of Megatrends, came out with China's Megatrends. This time, the Chinese edition debuted before the English original."
• Voices of Power Transcript: Chris Lu [Washington Post] "Chris Lu has known President Obama since they attended Harvard Law School together, but they cemented their friendship when Obama hired him in 2004 for his Senate staff. He's the Cabinet secretary — a title that belies an intense assignment as chief intermediary between the White House and the federal agencies. On a daily basis, his job is not only to convey the president's views and expectations to all the department heads and keep them on message, but also to help them resolve their issues with the White House. The son of Chinese immigrants, Lu is one of the highest-ranking Asian Americans in the administration. "
• A special report on China and America: : The price of cleanliness [The Economist] "The Beijing authorities built Taiyanggong to impress the world in the run-up to the Olympic games which opened in the city in August 2008—on the same day that America opened a new embassy in Beijing (heated, American officials say proudly, by Taiyanggong). Some 5,000 workers toiled night and day to deliver on the Chinese government’s promise to provide an environmentally friendly power source for the games. Taiyanggong was connected to the grid with nearly eight months to spare…Now the power station’s owners, led by a municipal state-owned company, are struggling to make it work financially. "
• Mandarin Eclipses Cantonese, Changing the Sound of Chinatown [NYTimes] "He grew up playing in the narrow, crowded streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown. He has lived and worked there for all his 61 years. But as Wee Wong walks the neighborhood these days, he cannot understand half the Chinese conversations he hears. Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants." more ›

• Jet Li returns to Chinese film after 3 US movies [AP] "Jet Li is returning to Chinese film with a reportedly non-kung fu movie after three Hollywood productions, a publicist said Tuesday. Li is due to start shooting the movie — tentatively called "Ocean Paradise" in Chinese — Edko Film publicist Zhang Hongyan told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday. The film, due to be released next year, will be directed by a newcomer, Zhang said, declining to give further detail before the official announcement at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday."
• China Premier Rejects 'Blindly Optimistic' View of Economy [WSJ] "China's Premier Wen Jiabao expressed caution about the country's economic recovery, saying the effects of some short-term policies may fade while longer-term policies will take time to have an impact. Ending a three-day visit to the eastern province of Zhejiang, Mr. Wen warned against being "blindly optimistic," according to a statement by the State Council."
• China Mobile chief pushes e-book potential [BusinessWeek] "China Mobile Ltd., the world's largest mobile carrier, is pushing e-reading, seeing it as its next big mobile business, the company's chief executive has said. Wang Jianzhou, also China Mobile's chairman, called e-reading a "new culture" and said he expects such services to grow in China because of the rising popularity of smart phones, which can download content faster than conventional cell phones."

The gig is up! All Huffington Post readers have now realized that Shanghai and Beijing are the land of opportunity and we'll soon see an influx of smug, knee-jerk left wingers trying to find their place in China's "surging" economy. Yes, we know it's just a link to a New York Times article, but that link has already garnered over 2,000 3,000 comments, most of which are smug, knee-jerk and left wingy. We counted a couple references to Bu$h, some attempts at jokes about Palin in a cheongsam, and one kind of acute observation that this maybe makes Americans China's Mexicans. more ›