ABSTRACT
Three years is a long time in modern China. Since the first edition of this book, many things have changed. The economy has continued its upward rise. Personal prosperity is now much more evident, especially in the big cities and the eastern coastal zone. Beijing, where once it was a struggle to get a decent meal in the evening, now boasts streets full of smart restaurants and its youth wear leather jackets and have trendy haircuts. The mayor of Shanghai, visiting Beijing in the autumn of 2002 for the Sixteenth Congress of the Communist Party, was reportedly shocked by the high standard of living he found there, and
asked his Beijing counterpart for advice on how Shanghai could catch up (but as this was reported in the local Beijing media, perhaps the story should be taken with a very large pinch of salt – the rivalry between Beijing and Shanghai in such matters is legendary). And in Shanghai itself, though construction on the high-rises stuttered to a halt during the Asia crisis, down at street level in the shopping malls along the Nanjing Road the spending boom went on and on, like the crisis wasn’t even happening.
