ABSTRACT
The People’s Republic of China is situated in East Asia. The third largest country in the world, next to Canada and Russia, it has an area of 9.6 million square kilometres or one-fifteenth of the world’s land mass. It is also the biggest nation in the world in terms of the number of its citizens in 2003, with its almost 1.3 billion people. Although with an official GDP per capita at a comparatively low level, China stood as the second-largest economy in the world after the US (measured on a purchasing power parity or PPP basis) (CIA 2003). In reality, the GDP per capita was much higher on this yardstick.
