Made in China: Supercomputer ‘Sunway BlueLight MPP’ with homegrown chips

Homegrown China Supercomputer 'Sunway BlueLight MPP' Hits One Petaflop with Lower Power 神威蓝光千万亿次计算机系统

China is making strides in the technological world by producing its own semiconductor chips for the latest Chinese supercomputer, officials announced earlier this week.

The supercomputer, known as the Sunway BlueLight MPP (Chinese: 神威蓝光), was installed in September at the National Super Computer Center in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province in eastern China.

Sunway BlueLight MPP is composed of 8,700 ShenWei SW1600 microprocessors which are RISC-based

The Sunway system, which can perform about 1,000 trillion calculations per second — a petaflop — will probably rank among the 20 fastest computers in the world. More significantly, it is composed of 8,700 ShenWei SW1600 microprocessors, designed at a Chinese computer institute and manufactured in Shanghai. The ShenWei Sunway BlueLight MPP has 150TB of main storage and 2PB of external storage. Each ShenWei SW1600 processor is 64-bit, has 16-cores and is RISC-based.

Currently, the Chinese are about three generations behind the state-of-art chip making technologies used by world leaders such as the United States, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

China’s creation of its own chips was viewed as an astounding action.

China’s most powerful supercomputer, the 2.5-petaflop Tianhe-1A, used 2,048 Chinese-developed FT1000 processors it got the bulk of its performance from 7,168 Nvidia Tesla GPUs and 14,336 Intel CPUs

Last fall, another Chinese-based supercomputer, the 2.5-petaflop Tianhe-1A, created an international sensation when it was briefly ranked as the world’s fastest, before it was displaced in the spring by a rival Japanese machine, the K Computer, designed by Fujitsu. But the Tianhe was built from processor chips made by American companies, Intel and Nvidia, though its internal switching system was designed by Chinese engineers. Similarly, the K computer was based on Sparc chips, originally designed at Sun Microsystems in Silicon Valley.

World’s fastest supercomputer - Fujitsu’s K Computer

Sunway’s theoretical peak performance was about 74 percent as fast as the fastest United States computer — the Jaguar supercomputer at the Department of Energy facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, made by Cray Inc and uses microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
. That machine eats up about seven megawatts to output roughly 1.7 petaflops of processing performance and is currently the third fastest on the list.

The Department of Energy is planning three supercomputers that would run at 10 to 20 petaflops. And the United States is embarking on an effort to reach an exaflop, or one million trillion mathematical operations in a second, sometime before the end of the decade, though most computer scientists say the necessary technologies do not yet exist.

To build such a computer from existing components would require immense amounts of electricity — roughly the amount produced by a medium-size nuclear power plant.

The computer is power-efficient, consuming a megawatt of power when running, compared to seven megawatts for the US’s fastest computer, Jaguar, which is capable of 1.7 petaflops. This is partly due to an advanced water cooling system. If true, that would be less than half power used by the one petaflop Blue Gene/P JUGENE system in Germany, one of the most energy efficient CPU-based supercomputers in production today. The Tianhe supercomputer consumes about four megawatts and the Jaguar about seven.

The ShenWei microprocessor appears to be based on some of the same design principles that are favored by Intel’s most advanced microprocessors, according to several supercomputer experts in the United States.

But there is disagreement over whether the machine’s cooling technology is appropriate for designs that will be required by the exaflop-class supercomputers of the future.

China is also committed to employing its latest Godson processors in supercomputers. In February, at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Godson lead engineer Weiwu Hu said the Godson-3B will power the 300-teraflop Dawning machine that was scheduled to be deployed over the summer.

There may be even more of this kind of news on the horizon. According to a report from CPU World back in March, besides the Godson-based and ShenWei-based systems, another design based on something called “Yinhe” will be used in a supercomputer before the end of 2011. The CPU World report attributes both the ShenWei and Yinhe designs to the Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology and National University of Defense Technology.

Photos of the new Sunway supercomputer reveal an elaborate water-cooling system that may be a significant advance in the design of the very fastest machines.

China’s goal is to be able to deploy an exaflop-class system, using China-built chips, by 2020. The U.S. is hoping to reach an exaflop by 2019 through upgrades to its Jaguar – soon-to-be “Titan” – supercomputer, and Europe expects to reach its exaflop goal within a similar timeframe.

Ranking – World’s Top Ten Fastest Supercomputers

1)Fujitsu K computer ( Japan, June 2011 – present)
2)NUDT Tianhe-1A ( China, November 2010 – June 2011)
3)Cray Jaguar ( United States, November 2009 – November 2010)
4)IBM Roadrunner ( United States, June 2008 – November 2009)
5)IBM Blue Gene/L ( United States, November 2004 – June 2008)
6)NEC Earth Simulator ( Japan, June 2002 – November 2004)
7)IBM ASCI White ( United States, November 2000 – June 2002)
8Intel ASCI Red ( United States, June 1997 – November 2000)
9)Hitachi CP-PACS ( Japan, November 1996 – June 1997)
10)Hitachi SR2201 ( Japan, June 1996 – November 1996)

神威蓝光：全国产化的超级计算机问世

在刚刚发布的《2011年中国高性能计算机TOP100排行榜》中，排名第二的神威蓝光(Sunway BlueLight MPP)受到与会业界专家的广泛关注，该机器获得科技部863计划支持，由国家并行计算机工程技术研究中心制造，于2011年9月安装于国家超算济南中心，全部采用自主设计生产的CPU(ShenWei processor SW1600)，按照MPP万万亿次架构设计，系统共8704个CPU，峰值1.07016PFlops，持续性能795.9TFlops， Linpack效率74.37%，总功耗1074KW。其最大特点是核芯处理器全部采用国产CPU申威1600处理器。国家超级计算济南中心是科技部批准成立的全国3个千万亿次超级计算中心之一，由山东省科学院计算中心负责建设、管理和运营。

落户国家超级计算济南中心的神威蓝光高效能计算机，是国内首台全部采用国产中央处理器（CPU）和系统软件构建的千万亿次计算机系统，标志着我国成为继美国、日本之后第三个能够采用自主CPU构建千万亿次计算机的国家。

神威蓝光拥有四大特点：一是全部采用国产的CPU；二是Linpack效率高达74.4%，而一般的千万亿次机都在50%左右；三是采用液冷技术，节能；四是高密度，在一个机仓（机柜）里可以装入1024颗CPU，千万亿次规模仅需要9个这样的机仓

神威蓝光拥有四大特点：一是全部采用国产的CPU；二是Linpack效率高达74.4%，而一般的千万亿次机都在50%左右；三是采用液冷技术，节能；四是高密度，在一个机仓（机柜）里可以装入1024颗CPU，千万亿次规模仅需要9个这样的机仓。

神威蓝光的计算机节点，在1U高的机箱中可以放入4个CPU板，每个板上可以装两颗16核的CPU

神威蓝光的计算机节点，在1U高的机箱中可以放入4个CPU板，每个板上可以装两颗16核的CPU。

神威蓝光的“心脏”：申威1600实物照

神威蓝光使用的CPU名叫申威1600，拥有16个核，采用的是RISC架构，主频在1GHz上下

神威蓝光使用的CPU名叫申威1600，拥有16个核，采用的是RISC架构，主频在1GHz上下

神威蓝光使用的CPU名叫申威1600，拥有16个核，采用的是RISC架构，主频在1GHz上下

装有两颗申威1600的CPU板

装有两颗申威1600的CPU板

高密度设计：在一个机仓（机柜）里可以装入1024颗CPU，千万亿次规模仅需要9个这样的机仓

高密度设计：在一个机仓（机柜）里可以装入1024颗CPU，千万亿次规模仅需要9个这样的机仓

在计算节点中采用液冷（据说是使用500元1吨的纯净水）设计也是神威蓝光的一大技术特色，中间是铝制液冷散热板

在计算节点中采用液冷（据说是使用500元1吨的纯净水）设计也是神威蓝光的一大技术特色，中间是铝制液冷散热板

Underground Lending: China’s Own Subprime Crisis?

Shadow Financing - China's Own Subprime Debt Crisis

We’re still cleaning up the mess from the massive debt-fueled housing bubble in the US when suddenly we’ve got to deal with Europe’s public finances. We haven’t even gotten started on that one when a third debt debacle starts rumbling, in China.

More than 90 businessmen have disappeared, committed suicide or declared bankruptcy to avoid repaying debts to informal lenders in the eastern city of Wenzhou （Chinese: 温州) — renowned for its factories specializing in everything from cigarette lighters to shoes — after borrowing from private lenders at very high interest rates.

Underground lending (Shadow Financing, Chinese: 民间借贷, 民间融资) has flourished in the city and other parts of China in the past 12 months as authorities clamped down on official financing channels and major banks favored large state-owned enterprises.

China’s private lending market, known as the curb market,  is worth an estimated four trillion yuan ($628 billion) — or 10 percent of gross domestic product — fueling concerns about a potential explosion in bad debts.

Nowhere is it more developed than in Wenzhou, whose 400,000 private companies have earned the city a reputation for business savvy in a country where many big enterprises are state-controlled. The city’s credit crisis highlights some of the flaws — and potential risks — of the banking system in the world’s second-largest economy.

Guards keep watch over the factory premises of Zhejiang Center Group, China’s largest glasses manufacturer

Factory bosses in a dire credit crunch

With more than $16 million in debts she had no hope of repaying, Zheng Zhuju did what scores of other business owners in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou have done in recent months — run away.

Zheng was among those who flourished early on, setting up an appliance store which made her an admired businesswoman with a fleet of luxury cars.

With a trusted reputation, she borrowed from more than 300 small business owners, pooling their money and channeling it into lucrative property investments and high-interest loans to other companies.

As China’s economy slowed, however, the scheme collapsed: property values plunged, her borrowers defaulted, and she could not pay back her own creditors.

So Zheng quietly shuttered her store, transferred her remaining assets to her daughter and disappeared in late August. She has since been found and is now in police custody.

Some private entrepreneurs who went into hiding to escape repaying billions in high-interest loans have returned to China. Among them was Hu Fulin, CEO of the Zhejiang Center Group

Business Owners Trapped By Debt

On a recent day, the doors at what used to be the Zhengdeli shoe factory in Wenzhou are chained shut. The only person there is a security guard from the government, which has taken over the facility.

In late September, the factory’s owner, Shen Kuizheng, plunged to his death after jumping from his 22-story apartment. He was facing more than $60 million in debt.

Xu Jianpian, another Wenzhou factory owner, knew Shen.

“[Shen] expanded his business and wanted to be No. 1 in the shoemaking industry. He took out underground loans. And the interest was more than $15,000 a day,” Xu says.

Debt crisis hits China’s cradle of private firms

Dubbed the nation’s capital of private financing, the city of Wenzhou offers a textbook example of how non-bank lending has fueled private-sector prosperity — and risk-taking — in China.

Wenzhou’s private entrepreneurs, scrappy survivors in an economy ruled by state industries, once thrived on a formula of cheap backstreet loans and low-cost manufacturing.

Now, they’re at the center of what some have dubbed China’s own subprime debt crisis, a festering mess of borrowings gone sour that has become one of the weakest links in the economy — at a time when strength is most needed to offset weakness in the U.S. and Europe.

Pyramids of high-interest private lending are collapsing as companies whose profits are dwindling due to rising costs and weakening demand default on their debts.

The true scale of informal lending nationwide, much of it derived from bank loans originally intended for other purposes, is unknown. But such lending has ballooned because China’s banks are not allowed to charge higher interest on riskier loans and mainly lend to other large state-controlled enterprises, shunning small- and medium-sized firms. Many small business owners have no choice but to turn to private lenders for financing, despite the punishingly high interest rates. Interest charged by private lenders can be as high as 90%, inviting comparisons with dodgy investment schemes.

Nearly 90 percent of Wenzhou’s residents and almost 60 percent of the companies engage in private lending, the central bank says, although officially the government says only 20 percent of lending in the city is private.

But slowing demand for exports, the lifeblood of Wenzhou companies, along with rising wages and soaring commodity prices have squeezed already tight margins and left many small businesses struggling to repay debts.

“Shadow banking is needed but the problem is there aren’t enough regulations,” said Sun Mingchun, a Daiwa Capital Markets economist, “They need to be regulated by national regulators as local governments mainly focus on boosting their own economic growth without realizing regional lending risks.”

Kangbashi New Central District, a ghost town due to its new buildings but few people, is an extreme example of Ordos’ locals’ craze for property

China’s shadow banking system spills north

But behind Wenzhou’s woes lie a wider problem in China: many with capital to invest are no longer looking to manufacturing, when real estate, speculating in commodities such as Pu Er tea and high interest lending can offer much better returns.

Barely weeks after Premier Wen Jiabao paid a rare visit to the eastern city of Wenzhou amid an epidemic there of debt-fueled business closures, a similar outbreak is undermining the future of Ordos (Chinese: 鄂尔多斯), in China’s Inner Mongolia, a city that has become so rich it has been called “China’s Dubai”.

The wealth of Ordos is built on vast deposits of coal, which account for one-sixth of the nation’s total reserves, and gas, with proven reserves of about 750.4 billion square meters, or one third of the nation’s total reserves.

Given limited investment alternatives on the mainland, rich and not so rich residents have invested in the property market. With sate-owned banks reluctant to lend as the government seeks to curb property speculation and inflation, many have also earned money by making private loans that can earn an average annual interest rate of 30%.

Kangbashi New Central District, a ghost town due to its new buildings but few people, is an extreme example of Ordos’ locals’ craze for property.

The new district was initiated in 2006 to drive up measurable gross domestic product (GDP) growth – a yardstick for evaluation of the performance of local officials.

It has been equipped with wide highways, endless rows of luxury residential units, government buildings, office buildings, shopping malls, sculpture parks and a theater. But after an estimated investment of 17 billion yuan, only 50,000 people have moved in. The local government has vowed to move schools and enterprises into the town, but has not given further details.

The majority of households in Ordos city, just as in Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, are believed to be engaged in private lending.  Private lending may account for 30% to 40% of real estate industry funding and 60% to 70% for the much-fragmented coal mining industry.

“The crisis has come now. If no proper measures are carried out, Ordos is very likely to follow the path of Wenzhou,” said Zhou Dewen, chief of Wenzhou’s association to promote small and medium-sized interprises (SMEs)

温州高利贷危机危机

温州模式是民间金融和中小企业发展状况的风向标，如今，这座城市因为从年初开始出现的温州老板跑路和跳楼事件而吸引了全国的目光。

愈演愈烈的温州民间借贷危机背后，是温州老板一轮的“跑路”热潮。分析资料显示，温州中小企业为应付生产及不断升高的工资与材料成本，被迫转向高利贷，企业主挖东墙补西墙，许多表面风光的企业背后都债台高筑。

温州老板“跑路”，原因并不复杂。企业资金链断裂，内外压力骤增，不得不逃之夭夭。以此番“跑路”领头羊信泰集团为例，信泰乃温州最大眼镜生产厂商，经营 中国市场销量最大的太阳镜品牌。2008年，企业开始进军光伏产业，但其年仅数亿元的产值，根本无法支撑扩张需求。银行信贷管得严，只好在高利贷圈中摸爬 滚打，企业民间借贷已达12亿元，光月息就得支付2000多万元。近来经济形势趋紧，企业因资金链断裂而陷入绝境，老板无奈，一跑了之。

被广泛引述的一个案例是，一位不愿具名的企业主称，自己的工厂有1000多名员工，一年辛苦到头利润不足百万，而太太在上海投资十套房，八年间获利超过3000万。面对此情此景，很多实体经济从业者表示，目前制造业的净利润已经在5%的警戒线以下，只能勉强维持。他们毫不隐晦地指出，很多制造业的老板都参与了民间借贷的生意，将从银行弄来贷款做拆借，实体经济“空心化”已是不争事实。

尽管高增值高回报，一直是温州人追求的终极目标。但在他们逐利成性的背后所隐藏的，是温州企业家族管理制度对现代企业所表现出来的不适应性。由于温州企业大部分为家庭式私企发展而来，不愿意进行垄断、并购，即使是股份制企业很多本质仍然是私营的，至今温州上市的企业仅只有10家，遍地小企业根本无法发展壮大。

而这种以小商品经营为主要特征的传统经营模式，在强大的竞争对手面前显得软弱无力；缺乏诚信、惟利是图，纯粹以赢利为目的的经营理念已与现代社会格格不入。既没有垄断资源又不吸收市场资金以投资进行企业转型，仅依靠资本运作是无法长期发展的，这是“温州模式”的悲剧。

在市场经济先进的土壤之上，温州模式赖以成功的先天优势已经逐渐失去，中国进入了高成本时代，尤其廉价劳动力的时代已经一去不返。没有了低成本，温州制造何以生存和发展？

房产泡沫标本 鄂尔多斯民间借贷危机

在温州老板密集跑路之际,在千里之外,与江浙、山西等地资金有复杂关联的内蒙古鄂尔多斯市,也深陷高利贷泥潭,局部危情显现。9月24日，鄂尔多斯市中富房地产开发责任有限公司法定代表人王福金自缢。这成为鄂尔多斯民间借贷危机爆发的标志性事件。父亲借钱儿子放贷，近九成家庭或个人参与到民间借贷市场里。在资金流向上,温州因拥有众多出口型企业,而显得较为分散;鄂尔多斯则过度集中于房地产和煤炭行业,若资金链大面积断裂,有可能进一步引发行业(以房地产业为主)危机,危及地方经济发展。

尽管公众对鄂尔多斯民间借贷危机的关注程度，远不及温州，但其影响也较严重。如同温州一样，鄂尔多斯也是民间富裕程度较高、民间资本较为集聚、民间借贷 较为活跃的地区。据不完全统计，鄂尔多斯资产过亿元的富豪在6000人以上，资产上千万元的富人则至少有几万人。这些民间资本大量参与民间借贷，鄂尔多斯 民间资本规模超过2000亿元。

康巴什是个原本仅千余人的荒漠村落，如今这个地图上的新地名成为鄂尔多斯市耗资50多亿元打造的新城。据康巴什新区政府网站数据，截至今年6月18日，康 巴什地上项目总建筑面积322万平方米，预计到2011年年底，新区本年新增竣工面积达到350万平方米，总竣工面积672万平方米。房产泡沫标本;鄂尔 多斯”空城”面积将再扩两倍。

“Label Lust”: China’s Booming Luxury Goods Market

“Label Lust”: China’s Booming Luxury Goods Market

China has experienced a relentless surge in consumer buying power after three decades of blistering growth. The world’s now second-largest economy has led to an explosion of millionaires with most of them under 40 years old.

And they love the glitz and glam: donning Louis Vuitton handbags and Richemont watches, sipping Dom Pérignon champagne, and cruising around in Lamborghinis.

Three Chinese shoppers make luxury purchases at Harrods in London - 三名中国妇女在伦敦哈罗德百货购买奢侈品

• China to be world’s largest luxury market by 2015

China is poised to become the world’s largest market for luxury goods by 2015, as rising affluence, urbanization and increasing competition stimulate demand, according to a new McKinsey report “Understanding China’s Growing Love of Luxury” released on March 8, 2011.

China is currently the fastest growing and second largest luxury goods market in the world, second only to Japan.

With fatter paychecks and stronger desires to display new wealth, Chinese consumers are building their appetites for designer handbags, watches, cars, fine jewelry, perfume and cosmetics and clothing. They’re pushing up profits at high-end retailers, such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès, and are expected to increase to about 180 billion yuan (US$27 billion) in 2015 from 80 billion yuan (US$12 billion) last year. LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Hermes International are among luxury goods makers expanding in China as the nation overtook Japan to become the world’s second- largest economy last year.

McKinsey forecasts that most of this growth will come from an explosion of wealth among what it describes as ”upper middle class” households — homes whose annual incomes are between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan (US$15,000 to US$30,000).

Far from saturation

“Even with the proliferation of luxury stores in recent years, China is far from reaching saturation,” said Yuval Atsmon, the author of McKinsey & Co.’s report, “Hermes’s footprint in China still falls well short of its 45-store presence in Japan. This is true for other leading brands.”

Shoppers line up to enter a shop of French luxury brand Louis Vuitton in a mall in Shanghai. China is already the largest market for Louis Vuitton.

• Louis Vuitton, Chanel top China’s most-wanted list

China’s ever increasing economic clout has again been reflected in a survey by Bain & Company on consumer tastes in luxury goods which has shown the nation not only knows what goods it wants, it most certainly now has the means by which to buy them.

Bain & Company surveyed around 1,500 mainland Chinese consumers and found that those families living in “first-tier” cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and earning between 5,000 and 15,000 yuan (547 and 1,642 euro) per month, would spend 21,000 yuan (2,300 euro) on luxury goods each year.

In response to this growing lust for spending, the 15 high-end luxury brands polled in the survey revealed they had between them opened 80 new outlets across China in the past 12 months. And it appears the majority of the money being spent is by consumers ages between 25 and 44 whereas in Japan and Europe most of the cash is splurged by those over 40.

According to this report, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Gucci are the most lusted-for brands.

China’s most popular brands
1.  Louis Vuitton (路易威登) – 46%
2. Chanel (香奈儿) – 36%
3. Gucci (古驰/古琦) – 22%
4. Armani (阿玛尼) – 20%
5. Christian Dior (迪奥) – 17%
6. Rolex (劳力士) – 14%
7. Cartier (卡地亚) – 11%
8. Hermès (爱马仕) – 8%
9. Prada (普拉达) – 8%
10. Lancôme (兰蔻) – 5%

“Louis Vuitton’s biggest customers are already Chinese … Greater China represents 28% of sales for Swatch, 22% for Richemont, 18% for Gucci, 14% for Bulgari and 11% for Hermes.” said Leo Lui, president of Hermes China: “Men’s ready-to-wear is … a top seller, which is quite unusual. In most other markets, it’s women’s ready-to-wear that sells. China is still a men’s market, and more traditional.”

Whereas the market for luxury goods in other countries is typically dominated by women, in China the men fill the tills with nearly equal abandon. They buy both for themselves and for other men, since gifts lubricate business in China. They are often willing to pay a large premium over the list price for desired items—many believe, for some reason, that the more something costs, the better it is.

French Fashion Label Chloé (蔻依) Doing Well in Chinese Luxury Market

• Chloé Positions Itself to Cash In on China’s Appetite for Luxury

French fashion house Chloé (蔻依), owned by Swiss luxury group Compagnie Financiere Richemont  SA (which also includes high-end jewelry and watch behemoths Cartier and Piaget), plans to expand from 10 boutiques in China to 14 by the end of the year, including stores in the eastern city of Nanjing and the central city of Xian.

Chloe’s expansion plans will position it to gain a larger share of China’s luxury-goods market.

“China isn’t just catching up with the world, it’s leading it,” said Geoffroy de-la-Bourdonnaye, Chloe’s president and chief executive, who joined Chloe last year from a London department store, Liberty.

As a small brand for Richemont, the world’s second-largest luxury goods group by sales behind French rival LVMH group, Chloe is joining a growing roster of high-end labels, such as Prada and Fendi, that are wooing famed Chinese actresses and wealthy businessmen.

Recently, Chloe streamed live its first-ever online runway event in Shanghai on a Chinese-language website it rolled out in December for China’s luxury lovers. The brand is hoping to fetch younger customers who aspire to own one of its handbags for 13,000 yuan to 15,000 yuan ($2,000 to $2,300), chiffon skirts for about 10,000 yuan, and black leather ballet flats for 3,500 yuan. Chloe isn’t the only luxury brand to notice that China’s shoppers are taking to the Internet. Late last year, Emporio Armani and Gucci announced plans to hit China’s Web.

Chloe — which counts fashion heavyweights Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo among its former artistic directors — is currently helmed by British designer Hannah MacGibbon, who has assisted Philo. The fashion house specializes in ultra-feminine, casual clothes in muted colors designed to go straight from the catwalk onto the street.

Chloe’s products will be made available to China’s online shoppers in 18 months.

• China’s Luxury-Car Love Affair Goes On

China became the world’s largest car market in 2009, selling nearly 13.6 million vehicles and surpassing the U.S’s 10.4 million sales that year. China has also staked a sizable claim in the luxury-car sector. The appetite for high-end autos seems insatiable in the world’s largest car market.

Lamborghini

China became the second-biggest market for Italian luxury sports car maker Lamborghini （Chinese: 兰博基尼). Lamborghini, owned by Volkswagen, sold 178 sports cars to Chinese customers in the first three quarters, a 200 percent growth from a year ago. Lamborghini was expected to sell 200 cars in 2010, up from the 80 cars it sold in 2009.

Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 Superveloce at the 2010 Beijing Auto Show 兰博基尼中国限量版车型LP 670-4 SV车型亮相2010年北京车展

The company hopes to have 20 showrooms in China by the end of 2011 and offer more limited editions. It launched a limited edition of the Murcielago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce at the 2010 Beijing Auto Show. Although it has a limit of only 10 cars worldwide, the 8 million yuan ($1.2 million) models were sold out during the seven-day event.

Bentley

The British automaker Bentley (Chinese: 宾利) has 13 dealers in China and sold 815 Bentley cars in the mainland last year.

2011 Bentley Mulsanne - 2011款宾利新旗舰车型Mulsanne

Bentley plans to launch the Continental GT and Mulsanne in China shortly. While its product positioning will not change, Bentley will determine engine type based on local regulations and tastes, according to Wolfgang Dürheimer, chairman and CEO of Bentley, who is extremely bullish on the Chinese market. The company also has considered introducing high performance hybrid luxury cars.

2011 Bentley Continental GT is arguably one of Bentley's sexiest machines ever 宾利2011款Continental GT，此系列车款是宾利旗下最具宾利特色也是销售最好的车款

Bentley is expanding its sales network to 30 by the end of 2014, mainly targeting places with strong economic growth in second-tier cities of Shenyang, Dalian, Taiyuan and Xi’an.

While the U.S. is currently Bentley’s largest market, China is expected to replace the U.S. as the new market leader.

Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd. (Chinese: 劳斯莱斯), Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s luxury nameplate, plans to sell 800 cars in China in 2011 as it aims to raise sales eightfold in two years in the world’s largest auto market.

A Rolls-Royce Phantom starts at 6.6 million yuan in China 劳斯莱斯幻影

The exclusive marque, which competes with Volkswagen AG’s Bentley and Daimler AG’s Maybach, is selling more of its Phantom and Ghost sedans in China as rising incomes in the world’s fastest growing major economy boost sales of luxury cars.

A Rolls-Royce Ghost starts at 4.1 million yuan in China 劳斯莱斯古思特

A Rolls-Royce Phantom starts at 6.6 million yuan ($990,000) and buyers pay 4.1 million yuan for a Ghost in China where consumers pay higher taxes on imported luxury models. In the U.S., the Phantom starts at $380,000. Yet demand remains strong. Chinese customers ordering a Phantom will have to wait until late May to receive their cars.

Ferrari

Italian luxury-car maker Ferrari (Chinese: 法拉利)  sold nearly 300 sports cars in China in 2010, a 50-percent increase over 2009 sales and a record since it entered the Chinese market six years ago.

Ferrari 599 GTO at the Beijing 2010 Auto Show 2010年北京国际车展首发的法拉利599 GTO

Rather than luck, Ferrari credits the sales increase to several key investments it has made in recent years. It culminated in 2010 with the introduction of special initiatives and such crowd-pleasing events as the display of the HY-KERS laboratory vehicle at the Shanghai World Expo and the launch of the 599 GTO at the 2010 Beijing Auto Show, Ferrari’s first-ever world premiere in China.

2012 Ferrari FF (Ferrari Four) is the company's first-ever four-seat, four-wheel-drive model 法拉利FF2012

To further demonstrate its commitment to this strategic market, the automaker announced that it will increase the number of dealerships in China from the current 10 in the next few months, as well as start the first Asian championship in the Ferrari Challenge single-make racing series in 2011.

The Maserati Quattroporte is a luxury four-door saloon made by Maserati in Italy 玛莎拉蒂总裁

Maserati

The Italian luxury car maker Maserati (Chinese: 玛莎拉蒂) saw a 60 percent sales growth in the first three quarters of 2010. The company now has 11 stores in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian and Qingdao.

BMW 5 Gets Even Longer in China: All-New 2011 Brilliance-BMW 5 Series 宝马5系旅行车

BMW

Record results by luxury automaker BMW (Chinese: 宝马), which also owns the Rolls-Royce and Mini brand, highlighted the power of the German export machine as China emerged as a bigger market for German industry than the United States.

BMW posted record revenues and net profit for 2010, in part owing to an 85.3 percent jump in sales to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan while Germany as a whole saw total exports soar 24.2 percent in January.

BMW shipped 183,328 vehicles to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan last year, putting the region in third place behind Germany, with 267,160, and the United States on 266,580.

2012 Audi A6 sedan - 2012款奥迪A6

Audi

German carmaker Volkswagen’s premium brand Audi (Chinese: 奥迪) expected to stay ahead of the competition in fast-growing China.

Audi’s volumes, revenue and operating profit all set a record in 2010 due mainly to China where sales moved to within 1,000 vehicles of its home market total.

Audi is the world’s third biggest luxury carmaker behind German rivals BMW and Mercedes.

The company wants to increase sales by 10% this year to 1.2 million as it aims to topple BMW as the world’s leading luxury carmaker.

• In Wine Circles, It’s All China

A Bordeaux Bubble

Châteaux Lafite-Rothschild 1869 is the world's most expensive wine sold for $232,692 a bottle in 2010 by a Chinese bidder, far eclipsed the previous record of $168,000 for a Lafite 1787 - 最贵葡萄酒1869Chateaux Lafite-Rothschild,每瓶美金232,692 元

The Chinese are also rapidly emerging as wine aficionados. Late last year, at a Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong, an anonymous Chinese phone bidder paid $232,692 each for three bottles of 1869 Château Lafite Rothschild (Chinese: 拉菲酒庄/拉斐酒庄), a Napoleon III — era wine that was already maturing nicely when the Boxer uprising stymied European imperial ambitions in China. That price smashed the previous record of $156,450, paid in 1985 by the Forbes publishing family for a 1787 Lafite bottled for U.S. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. What really shocked the wine cognoscenti was the $70,000 paid at the same auction, not for another rare trophy bottle of Bordeaux but for a case of 2009 Lafite — a wine so young it has yet to be bottled. Prior to the auction, the much hyped 2009 vintage was being priced at around $18,000 a case.

More than 60 per cent of Sotheby’s entire wine sales in 2010 were made in Hong Kong. The price of 1982 Château Lafite Rothschild, China’s favorite brand, has risen by 60 per cent in the last 12 months. Over the past decade, the price has risen by 1,000 per cent, largely thanks to the insatiability of the Chinese market.

While Chateau Lafite remains a firm favorite among Chinese wine aficionados, others including Mouton-Rothschild, Margaux, d'Yquem and Haut Brion are snapping at its heels.

Thanks to Lafite’s halo effect, wine merchants around the globe are already marking up prices of Lafite’s main Bordeaux rivals, including Chateau Latour (拉图酒庄), Chateau Margaux (玛歌酒庄/玛高酒庄), Chateau Mouton-Rothschild (木桐酒庄/武当王), Chateau d’Yquem (伊甘酒庄/伊甘堡) and Pessac-Leognan producer Chateau Haut Brion (奥比昂酒庄/奥比康庄园). The index of 100 top wines maintained by Liv-ex rose 40% in 2010.
China is now the largest export market for Bordeaux wines, according to Le Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux, a promotional agency, which says sales of the wine in the country have doubled in each of the past five years

Chinese Labels

Chinese painter Xu Lei Creates 2008 Chateau Mouton Rothschild Label 中国画家徐累为木桐•罗斯柴尔德酒庄2008年份创作酒标

The 200-year-old vineyard Château Lafite Rothschild last year put the Chinese symbol eight (八) on its 2008 vintage bottles, a lucky number in Asian culture, while Château Mouton Rothschild , known for bottle art by a different artist each year, selected an image by Chinese artist Xu Lei (Chinese: 徐累) for its 2008 label.

Wine comes and goes to China

A model shows a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild (about US$20-30,000) at an auction preview in Hong Kong

According to Robert Beynat, CEO of wine-trade show Vinexpo, Chinese wine consumption doubled in five years and the country is now seventh-largest in terms of volume and the eighth-largest in value. Of that wine drunk, the Chinese overwhelmingly prefer red wine: 90% of consumption was red. While counterfeiting could undermine confidence in the market, China will price the rest of the world’s wine lovers out of the top end of the market. Last year, more fine wine was sold in Hong Kong than in New York City and London put together, and by some estimates 1 in 4 bottles of the world’s greatest wine is now in Chinese hands.

• China’s Cuban Cigar Lovers

Opened by Castro's former Chinese translator, Casa Habana Cigar Club (哈瓦那之家雪茄俱乐部) offers the finest imported Cuban cigars in Beijing

Cigars seem to be the latest object of desire for the growing number of wealthy Chinese, according to Habanos SA, the worldwide distributor of Cuban cigars. The company said that China has now replaced Germany as the world’s third biggest cigar importer.

Habanos’ total global sales edged up 2 per cent to $367m in 2010 despite smoking bans  and recession, with smokers in China and the Middle East providing most of the uplift.

Spain and France remain the biggest markets, but following the opening of Cuban cigar shops in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai, China is catching up. Brands such as Montecristo, Cohiba and Patargás offer an image of luxury and sophistication, qualities sought by China’s burgeoning middle class.

As the number of wealthy customers in China grows, Habanos is beginning to put more resources into its presence in China. Currently four of Habanos’ 142 Casa del Habanos, or Cigar Houses, where cigar aficionados can sample a variety of Cuban cigars, are in China – two in Beijing, and one in Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Best of China:Top Ten Must-See Attractions

Best of China - Top Ten Must-See Attractions in China

China is a vast and extraordinary country spanning thousands of miles from the deserts in the west to the ocean on the east. Culturally, China has one of the richest and textured histories of all civilizations that encompasses over 5,000 years. China’s top sights range from dynastic relics through to modern cityscapes, with some frankly jaw-dropping landscapes in between. If you come to China and miss out on these, it must be because you’ve seen them before. Here are China’s top ten essential attractions.

An interactive map of Top Ten Attractions in China

• No.1 Forbidden City  故宫

The Forbidden City: Imperial magnificence in a grand scale - 故宫

It’s not forbidden and it’s not a city, but it is extremely large, so you’ll need the better part of a day to see the best-preserved collection of imperial architecture in China. The Forbidden City, or Palace Museum, sits at the center of Beijing, directly north of Tiananmen Square where the famous portrait of Mao Zedong hangs on the palatial crimson wall. It was the imperial seat for Ming and Qing dynasty emperors from 1420 until 1912 when the last emperor, Pu Yi, abdicated. It was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

Address: (South entrance) North side of Tiananmen Square across Chang’an Dajie; (North entrance) 4 Jingshan Qianjie, Dongcheng District, Beijing
Chinese Address: 天安门城楼北侧 (南入口）； 北京市东城区景山前街4号（北入口）

• No.2 Great Wall of China 长城

The Great Wall (China's best-known attraction) at Jiankou 箭扣长城

The Great Wall winds its way across China covering over 5,500 miles (8,850 km). While the latest construction occurred after 1368 during the Ming Dynasty, construction of the Great Wall began over 2,000 years ago. In fact, the Great Wall is actually made up of a number of interconnecting walls spanning China that different dynasties and warlords constructed over the years. The serpentine bastion is best visited from Beijing, but it charts a crumbling course across much of north China. If you don’t mind the volume of people,  Badaling is still the closest and most convenient part of the Great Wall from Beijing. And the views are spectacular. For a superior Great Wall experience, aim for original and unrestored sections such as Jiankou.

The Great Wall at Badaling
Address: Yanqing County, Beijing
Chinese Address: 北京市延庆县八达岭
Phone:010-6912-1363

• No.3 Terracotta Warriors at the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang  秦始皇兵马俑

Terracotta Warriors at the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang 秦始皇兵马俑

This is the reason most visitors come to Xi’an, and unlike many big sights in China, it does not disappoint. Discovered in 1974 when a local farmer was digging a well, the terracotta army, buried in 210 BC with the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, of the Qin dynasty, is a breathtaking site. The thousands of life-size figures have individually unique faces and hair and armor styles appropriate to their rank. The museum of the Terracotta Army is located in Xi’An, Shanxi province. It’s hard not to get a shiver down your spine as you survey the unromantically named Pit 1, with four columns of warriors in each of the 11 passageways; there are over 1,000 infantry in battle formation, stretching back 182m (600 ft.)

Address: 30 km (19 mi) east of Xian in the town of Lintong, Xian
Chinese Address: 陕西省西安市近郊临潼区秦始皇陵东侧约1公里半处
Website: bj.bmy.com.cn
Phone: 029-81399001

• No.4 Karst Scenery around Yangshuo and Guilin 阳朔桂林山水

Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo remains one of top river journeys in the world 阳朔桂林山水

Illustrating the 20 Renminbi (Chinese currency) note, the karst mountains are famously beautiful in China. Formed more than 200 million years ago when the oceans receded from this area, the towers sprout from a patchwork of paddy fields and flowing streams, creating a dreamy, seductive landscape that leaves few souls unstirred. Time and space meet here to produce a masterpiece of nature’s handiwork. Located in the south of China in Guangxi province, they can best be viewed by a cruise down the deductive Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo. The cruise may be overexposed and overpriced, but the scenery area remains captivating. With summer’s heat and humidity and winter’s low rainfall affecting water levels in the Li River, April, May, September, and October are the best months for cruising.

• No.5 Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain)  黄山

Huang Shan is China's most famous mountain for scenic beauty 天下第一奇山: 黄山

If you climb one mountain in China, let it be Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain). Put your head in the clouds while climbing Huang Shan, China’s most gorgeous mountain. Having no religious significance, the mountain is known instead for its sea of clouds, strangely shaped rocks, unusual pine trees, and bubbling hot springs — four features that have mesmerized and inspired countless painters and poets for over 1,500 years.  They were so beguiling that years of labor went into their paths, which are actual stone steps rising up—sometimes gradually into the forest, sometimes sharply through a stone tunnel and into the mist above. Since 1990, the area has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The mountain is at its spectral best when wreathed in mist, but even on a clear day the views are simply stupefying. Trails are usually packed with hikers from May to October, so April is often cited as the best time to visit.

Location: southern Anhui Province

• No.6 Jiuzhaigou  九寨沟

Jiuzhaigou: One of the China's most popular tourist destinations 九寨沟

High among the snowcapped peaks of the Aba Autonomous Prefecture of northern Sichuan lies the Jiuzhaigou Reserve, a spectacular national park filled with lush valleys, jagged peaks, a dozen large waterfalls, and most famously, a collection of iridescent lakes and pools. Jiuzhaigou has become one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, with more than 1½ million people visiting every year. The preserve’s cerulean and aqua pools are among the most beautiful in the world, and the park’s raw natural beauty has been compared to Yellowstone National Park. Of cultural interest are six Tibetan villages of the original nine from which this valley gets its name.

• No.7 Potala Palace (Lhasa) 拉萨布达拉宫
  

Lhasa's cardinal landmark: Potala Palace 拉萨布达拉宫

Now a Chinese museum, the Potala Palace was traditionally the seat of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhists’ spiritual leader. Famous for its imposing white walls surrounding the inner red palace, the building sits at 3,700 meters or over 12,000 feet. The Potala Palace is located in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. (more top attractions in Tibet)

• No.8 Shanghai Bund 上海外滩

The Bund in Shanghai - China's most famous waterfront 上海外滩

The Bund, meaning embankment, was historically the seat of Shanghai’s most powerful businessmen in the late 1800s and early 1900s. A fabulous neoclassical and art deco sweep of architectural grandeur, Shanghai’s Bund squares off against the brashly modern cityscape across the Huangpu River. This is the contest between the old and the new in 21^st-century China at its most dramatic. China’s most famous waterfront of colonial architecture has become the toniest address in town, with the redevelopment of a few formerly stodgy old buildings into some of the city’s finest shopping and dining establishments. These rooftop restaurants offer unsurpassed views of Shanghai, old and new. For years, the Bund was the first sight of Shanghai for those arriving by boat; it should be your first stop as well.

Address: 5 blocks of Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu between Jinling Lu and Suzhou Creek, Huangpu District, Shanghai

• No.9 Wolong Nature Preserve  and Giant Panda Breeding Center 卧龙自然保护区大熊猫研究中心

China's favorite animal: Giant Panda at Wolong Breeding Center 卧龙自然保护区大熊猫研究中心

Established in 1963, Wolong isn’t the only place to see giant pandas, nor is it the most convenient.  But scientists here have made more advances in artificial breeding and raising pandas in captivity than anywhere in the world. The Wolong Breeding Center currently has about 200 giant pandas ranging in age from newborn to adult, and it is almost always possible to see panda cubs here. Another aspect of Wolong’s appeal is location. Situated in the high, densely forested mountains between the Sichuan Basin and the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, the area has a diverse topography that supports a broad range of vegetation and animal life — not that you’re likely to see any endangered species including: red pandas, golden monkeys, white-lipped deer. Nonetheless, the area is unspoiled and the flora is magnificent.

Location: Sichuan Province, 135km (84 miles) NW of Chengdu
Chinese Address：四川省阿坝藏族羌族自治州汶川县303省道

10. Hong Kong 香港

The dazzling night View of Hong Kong island from Kowloon across Victoria harbor 夜香港

See modern China – and Asia – at the cutting edge with a visit to Hong Kong. Whereas it took Paris and London 10 to 20 generations and New York six to build the spectacular cities seen today, in Hong Kong almost everything you see was built in the time since today’s young investment bankers were born. To stand on the tip of Kowloon Peninsula and look across the harbor to the full expanse of the Hong Kong Island skyline is to see the triumph of ambition over fate. Walking down the Kowloon side promenade gives the traveler a view of some of the most beautiful modern architecture in China, dominated by the Bank of China Tower with two masts designed by I.M. Pei.

China Property Bubble: Ghost Town of Kangbashi in Ordos

All Quiet
The Kangbashi district began as a public-works project in Ordos, a wealthy coal-mining town in Inner Mongolia, China. A public-works project worthy of Kubla Khan’s “stately pleasure-dome,” The area  is filled with office towers, administrative centers, government buildings, museums, theaters and sports fields—not to mention acre on acre of subdivisions overflowing with middle-class duplexes and bungalows. The only problem: the district was originally designed to house, support and entertain 1 million people, yet hardly anyone lives there.

Empty
Six years ago, Ordos county officials decided to move their headquarters out of old, cramped Dongsheng and into land that was then occupied by two small villages inhabited by about 1,400 people. By the end of 2008, the new district of Kangbashi was crisscrossed with 2.4 billion yuan ($352 million) worth of roads.  Though many of the properties in Kangbashi have been sold and a million people were projected to be living in Kangbashi by 2010, the city is still empty.

Vacant
Mostly empty apartment buildings in Kangbashi, a half hour down the road is Dongsheng, where most of Ordos’ 1.5 million resident call home.

Wealth and Knowledge
A pair of workers tidy up outside the public library. The city boasts the second highest per-capita income, behind to Shanghai but ahead of Beijing.

Treasure Palace
Workers carry pieces of foam up the stairs of the Ordos Museum, which is still under construction.

Monument
A pedestrian walks behind a giant sculpture of two horses in Kangbashi’s Linyinlu Square.

Light Traffic
Mostly empty apartment buildings stand in the distance.

No Sale
A pedestrian walks past a mostly unoccupied commercial area. Almost no businesses have moved into the new district.

Eerie Quiet
Empty streets remain empty even during the morning commute.

In Medias Res
An old man pushes a cart across a road segregating finished apartments and apartments still under construction.

Unfinished
Workers construct a plaza for un-present residents of an apartment complex.

On the Rise
Construction projects in Kangbashi continue despite the lack of occupancy.

From a Distance
Kangbashi awaits residents to bring the district, meant for a population the size of San Diego, California, to life.

Market Defies Fear of Real Estate Bubble in China

Luxury riverfront apartments are selling fast in the financial district of Shanghai

The spacious duplex comes with crocodile-skin bedposts, hand-carved bronze doors inlaid with Swarovski crystals — and a $45 million price tag.

It is still on the market, but Charles Tong, the developer of Tomson Riviera, a luxury riverfront complex in the heart of the financial district here, says he is having no trouble finding takers for similarly priced units.

Charles Tong, the developer of Tomson Riviera.

“We’re selling three to four apartments every month,” said Mr. Tong, seated in a white Versace easy chair. “Now, people here want something more luxurious; they’d like a new lifestyle.”

Everyone agrees China is in the middle of a spectacular real estate boom. The question is whether it is in the middle of a rapidly growing real estate bubble.

When other recent booms collapsed — in the United States, for instance — they depressed entire economies. In China’s case, a bursting bubble could affect much of the world. China is the fastest-growing large economy and, so far, a main engine pulling the world out of recession.

Beijing is clearly concerned. Authorities have recently moved to rein in the easy credit that has helped finance China’s hyperdevelopment, including making it more difficult for home buyers to take out a second mortgage.

Last year, a record $560 billion of residential property was sold in China, an increase of 80 percent from the year before, according to government statistics that are widely considered reliable. And with prices soaring, developers are scrambling to build more mansions, villas and high-rise apartments with names like Rich Gate, Park Avenue and Palais de Fortune.

Signs of exuberance are everywhere. An investor in Shanghai recently bought 54 apartments in a single day; a villa sold for $30 million last year; and in December a consortium of developers paid more than $3.5 billion for a huge tract of land in Guangzhou, one of the highest prices paid for any property, anywhere. In the city of Tianjin, in north China, developers have created a $3 billion “floating city,” a series of islands built on a natural reservoir, featuring villas, shopping malls, a water amusement park and what they say will be the world’s largest indoor ski resort.

“This is wild,” said Andy Xie, a former Morgan Stanley economist who is now an independent analyst. “By all the traditional measures, like rental yield, this is a bubble.”

Speculators are snapping up properties on the expectation that prices will continue to rise, as prices have nearly every year for more than a decade. And powerful developers are working with local governments to transform old cities into urban dreamscapes.

But Shanghai, China’s wealthiest and most dazzling city, is the epicenter of the boom. Prices here have risen more than 150 percent since 2003, pushing the price of a typical 1,100-square-foot apartment up to $200,000, according to real estate experts. (Shanghai residents typically earn less than $5,000 a year.)

A buying frenzy has gripped the city, leading to billion-dollar land auctions and long waiting lists.

“The speed you buy a house here is faster than you buy vegetables,” said Andy Xiang, an advertising executive who recently put down a large cash down payment to get the right to pay $1.3 million for an apartment in the city’s exclusive Xintiandi area.

Tomson Riviera, China's most exclusive residence

Few residences, though, are as upscale as Tomson Riviera, which consists of four golden-hued towers overlooking the Huangpu River, with a central garden mapped out in the shape of a dragon. The apartment complex’s entrance has original artworks by Salvador Dalí and well-known Chinese artists. The apartments, a few of which have been decorated by Armani and Fendi, as well as Versace, lease for $7,000 to $17,000 a month — to high-level executives from companies like General Motors.

Tomson Riviera, a luxury apartment complex that features designs by Versace and bronze doors inlaid with Swarovski crystals.

Those who buy an apartment here tend to be extremely wealthy, like Liu Yiqian, an eccentric Shanghai entrepreneur whom Forbes magazine says is worth about $540 million.

Mr. Liu, 47, got his start driving a taxicab in Shanghai but eventually made a fortune investing in the stock market. In an interview this week, he acknowledged owning hundreds of apartments in Shanghai (he said he could not remember exactly how many), including a 6,000-square-foot apartment in Tomson Riviera, which he bought in 2008 for about $11.5 million.

“I invest in properties,” Mr. Liu said, noting that he also collects art, antiques and jade. “I think in Shanghai in five to seven years the real estate prices will be even higher.”

As they try to modulate the market, local and central governments here are walking a thin line. Land sales were a major source of government revenue, raising about $234 billion last year, an amount equal to over a third of the cost of China’s half-trillion-dollar stimulus program.

Whether the country is in the middle of a bubble has become the subject of a debate. Some economists, like Nicholas R. Lardy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, say the housing boom is being propelled by a huge urbanization push that is creating premium-priced houses.

Other analysts say prices are being propped up by greedy developers and government policies that are making housing increasingly unaffordable for the masses migrating to big cities.

Despite the fear of a bubble here, Mr. Tong said his prices were just right, particularly because of so much hidden wealth in China. The publicly listed company is controlled by his family.

“I have a friend,” he said. “She makes maternity clothes. Her company has 20 percent of the world’s market share, and they’re not even a listed company.”

Still, Tomson’s prices are soaring. The most recent apartment sold for about $2,300 a square foot. The average luxury apartment in Manhattan sold for just under $1,900 a square foot in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman real estate.

Indeed, for the price of a Tomson apartment in Shanghai, a buyer could easily purchase a 6,000-square-foot home in Los Angeles built by Frank Lloyd Wright and now for sale ($10.5 million), or a 52-acre site with a 22-room residence in New Canaan, Conn. ($24 million).

But a sales agent at Tomson Riviera says this is the future financial capital of the world, not the dying one.

“Look at this bronze door,” said Wang Yaodong. “That costs $50,000! Look at these Gaggenau appliances. They were made in Germany.” The glasses were imported from Belgium, the Jacuzzi from Italy. And don’t worry about losing your key, he said, “This lock can read the palm of your hand.”

“Ant Tribe”: Struggling college graduates in China

On a freezing cold day with a temperature of 3°F, a member of the “Ant Tribe” boarded a bus in Tangjialing on her way to work in central Beijing

They sleep in boxy rooms crammed into dingy low-rises and spend hours commuting to work on crowded buses as part of a trend of poorer white-collar workers being forced to the fringes of China’s wealthiest cities.

Some say these struggling college graduates who swarm out of their cramped accommodations and head to work in the urban sprawl each morning are reminiscent of worker insects in a colony. Not surprisingly, they are often referred to as China’s Ant Tribe (Chinese pronunciation: yǐ zú, Chinese: 蚁族), after the title of a recent book by sociologist Lian Si.

Lian Si's "Ant Tribe", a book documenting struggles of jobless or underemployed college graduates in China

The growing ranks of ‘worker ants’ poses a policy challenge for Beijing’s city leaders as high property prices and dim career prospects thwart the ambitions of many graduates for a comfortable middle-class lifestyle.

In Tangjialing, a dusty suburban Beijing village laced with dirt roads, college-educated software technician Kong Chao typifies the spartan existence of many such graduates.

Muddy road from Tangjialing to work

“This is hard, but there’s no other way,” said Kong, 24, who is relatively fortunate as he has a toilet and cooking area in his cramped room and doesn’t have to share with other tenants.

Kong pays 550 yuan ($81) a month in rent, about 10 percent of his monthly wage. A similar room in a central area of Beijing would eat up most of his salary.

“You see what a crowded city Beijing is,” he said. “We younger people all come to seek work. But we can take it.”

Di Qun, one of the "ants" in Tangjialing, rests in his cramped room.

The rising number of graduates living on the edge of poverty in China’s biggest cities could become a socio-economic challenge for the Chinese government.

“When they’re 26, 27 or 28, they’ll say ‘I need to buy a house’, because that means eligibility for marriage,” said Tom Doctoroff, a Shanghai-based consumer trends author. “If the time comes to get married and you can’t buy, that causes anxiety.”

The population of 20-something jobless or underemployed college graduates struggling to live on the cheap has been estimated by the state-run China Daily newspaper to reach about a million, with 10 percent in Beijing.

Early Morning Breakfast in Tangjialing, Beijing

PROPERTY CONUNDRUM

Surging property prices have been at the crux of the problem.

Over the past 12 months, cheap lending has ramped up real estate demand by families and speculators, causing prices to rise by around a third in some cities and turning the possibility of owning their own home into a distant dream for many young couples.

With China’s property sector crucial for the broader Chinese economy, accounting for nearly a quarter of fixed asset investment, authorities have been at pains to balance the needs of economic stability with those of ordinary citizens.

Provincial and municipal governments are being urged to provide more land for affordable housing, and recent indicators suggest China will tighten its monetary policies after opening the taps during the financial crisis, which could alleviate the country’s property market bubble.

In January, property prices in 70 cities across China rose 9.5 percent from a year earlier. The eighth consecutive year-on-year rise added to worries of a real estate bubble.

Crowds waiting for the bus to work

GLUT OF STUDENTS

The ants’ story began a little over a decade ago, in 1999, when the Chinese government launched an ambitious plan to boost university enrollment by 30% annually. At the time, the country’s factories were suffering from the Asian financial crisis. Planners believed a rise in college rolls would help China transition from a largely export-driven, low-wage manufacturing economy to a more balanced one populated by upwardly mobile white-collar workers.

Undergraduate enrollment quintupled to 20 million students by 2008; last year 6.1 million Chinese earned diplomas, up from 1 million in 1999. But it soon became clear there weren’t enough suitable jobs for these freshly minted graduates. Beijing has slashed college enrollment growth to 5% annually.

Due to the glut of job seekers and the financial crisis, companies in popular cities such as Beijing have slashed monthly wages from between 50 to 100 percent to below 2,000 yuan in some cases, workers say.

Some experts suggest the government should divert young professionals into second-tier cities such as Chengdu and Xiamen to take pressure off Beijing and Shanghai.

LIVING IN FARM HOUSES

For now, educated workers live in tiny rooms carved out of lean-to farm houses or in low-rise flats outside urban job centers because they cannot afford to rent a private flat.

In the evenings in Tangjialing, whose population has swelled to 50,000 from 3,000 before the rise of “ants” about two years ago, tenants hang laundry, socialize at greasy diners and use cheap Internet cafes.

“They’re mostly from other parts of China, so their parents aren’t at their side to help,” noted Mou Jianmin, who follows the trend as head of a cultural promotion firm in Beijing.

Room-sharing by struggling graduates is common

In Wuhan, home to a cluster of universities, recent graduates live eight to 10 in a flat in low-rise apartment buildings without heat or hot water, said Swedish-born Maria Troein, who studies and teaches in the central China city.

“I wouldn’t call it desperation, but there’s definitely some anxiety,” she said.

“There’s a dream. (But) the ant people really can’t afford to have it,” Troelin added, referring to the goal of middle-class prosperity many “ants” pursue amid the squalor.

With millions of migrant workers having been laid off from coastal manufacturing hubs during the financial crisis, Chinese authorities have been trying to create more jobs in China’s less developed interior to absorb this surplus labor, with increasing numbers of workers choosing to stay at home.

One pressure valve, however, may be to encourage graduates to move to cities in China’s hinterland where they would have a better chance of buying their own home and could contribute to the government’s efforts to stimulate these local economies.

For now, though, in Tangjialing, many residents such as high-tech company salesman Li Xingshen, want to stay and claw their way up. Li recently traded a 200-yuan room for a more comfortable 500-yuan one with a private toilet.

But this modest step up is all he can afford for now.

“If I lived in an actual flat, that would cost 1,000 yuan, then I’m out of money,” Li said.

China plans to build world’s highest airport in Tibet

China has announced plans to build the world’s highest airport at an altitude of 4,436 meters (14,553ft) in Tibet.

The new airport, to be named as Nagqu Dagring Airport, will be located at Nagqu (also Naqu, Nagchu; Tibetan: ནག་ཆུ་ས་ཁུལ་; Wylie: Nag-chu Sa-khul; Chinese: 那曲) located 300 kilometers north of Lhasa at the center of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. Nagqu is connected to Highway 109 which spans north to Golmud and another Highway 317 which links east into Sichuan Province.

The airport will be another feat of engineering just 764 meters lower than the Mount Everest base camp on the Chinese side already located 5,200 meters above sea level. The Nagqu airport is the sixth one in Tibet and upon completion will give the region one airport per prefecture.

The new airport will be 102 meters higher than Bamda (Tibetan: Pomda) Airport in Qamdo (Tibetan: Chamdo) Prefecture, which has been the world’s highest airport since its completion in 1994. “With the airport, Nagqu, which is also on the Qinghai-Tibet railway line, is expected to become the center of an economic hub in the plateau region,” Tan Yongshou, commissioner of the prefecture.

Qamdo Bangda Airport in Tibet is the hightest airport since 1994

Construction of the new airport, which is likely to cost $260 million (yuan 1.8 billion), will start in 2011.

Xu Bo, director of the Tibetan branch of the China civil aviation administration commented: “The objective for the next stage of development is to open direct air routes from Tibet to South Asian countries.”

An extraordinary railway line connecting Tibet to the rest of China opened four years ago, and the government is constructing six new rail lines in and around the vast region, which is rich in natural resources.

Beijing argues that such changes are needed to boost growth and raise living standards.

But opponents claim that the developments are eroding the Tibetan way of life and damaging a fragile environment. They also believe that the economic benefits of the changes have been overstated.

But the railway itself has been a feat of engineering. At its highest point, the Qinghai-Tibet line hits 5,072 metres – a height that is above the peak of any European mountain.

西藏那曲将建世界海拔最高机场 2011年动工

西藏将在那曲地区建设世界上海拔最高的机场，这个机场海拔为4436米，比目前世界上海拔最高的昌都邦达机场要高出102米。占地面积约为3500亩至4000亩的4D级机场，机场的地址初步选定在那曲地区达萨乡达仁区，因此取名为“那曲达仁机场”。该机场计划于2011年动工，用3年建成。

海拔最高　挑战飞机极限

今年要完成在那曲地区机场的选址、飞行程序和导航台站的确认，如果一切顺利，预计在“十二五”期间开工建设。目前预选址海拔 4436米，是世界上海拔最高的机场。民航西藏管理局局长徐波说，这个高度，是飞机制造商提供的民用飞机发动机中，所能承受的极限高度。不过，经过前期周密调研，飞行不会有问题。

那曲地区新建机场项目已被列入“十二五”规划，初步确定建设一个占地面积约3500至4000亩的4D级机场，估计投资将达到18个亿。目前还在进行可研性报告和选址工作，计划2011年动工，在3年时间内建成。初步将机场的地址定在那曲地区那曲县达萨乡达仁区，机场的名字为“那曲达仁机场”。

速度快　40分钟从拉萨到那曲

“从拉萨到那曲，我个人开车的话，4个半小时能到那曲镇，那曲地区有机场后，从拉萨飞那曲只需要40分钟左右。”徐波认为，那曲建机场将大大方便两地公务和商务往来。

西藏自治区目前拥有拉萨贡嘎机场、林芝米林机场和改扩建工程完成的昌都邦达机场。于2007年动工建设的阿里地区昆莎机场目前工程进展也很顺利，计划在今年7月1日正式通航。日喀则和平机场正在紧张进行改扩建，有望在今年10月1日投入使用，将成为我区第5个民用机场。

建设中的阿里昆莎机场候机楼

今年自治区还将投资8亿元对拉萨贡嘎飞行区进行改造，贡嘎机场旅客量已经恢复到了2007年的火爆状态，而跑道因为老化缘故，已经无法满足旅客出行要求。跑道改造主要实行“盖被”工程，即加一层沥青混凝土，建成柔性跑道。此外还将改造7.7万平方米的停机坪，徐波说，如果条件允许，将争取大型空中客机起降，提高效率。

Google最后一游 探秘谷歌中国办公室奇景

Google北京大楼在2006年9月落成搬入，初期70~80%都是以搜寻工程为主，这是理所当然的核心业务。

Google北京办公室和台北的101办公室相比，北京办公室除了是「整栋」的以外，办公室的风格其实相差不大，包括人人流口水的餐厅、有趣的办公室和会议室命名、不同区块办公室的布置，都有相当的巧心思！

谷歌北京办公室地址：北京市海淀区中关村东路1号院8号楼科技大厦C座16层

这是李开复(Kai-Fu Lee, 李開復)之前的办公室，比想象中还要小很多呢，感受非常好，而且有种历史感。

这个Google Logo 是北京办公室自制，象征冬至的Google。

这个舒服的沙发空间，是北京办公室的四楼，其中三、四、十楼都是以工程师为主，二楼则是寒暑假实习生。Google 应征实习生的严格不下于平日的工程师应征，因为希望这些实习生毕业后就能成为Google的一员。

瑜伽和卡啦OK共享的地方，听说Google工程师都在半夜唱卡啦OK解压。

游戏间里的撞球桌和足球桌都算是标准设备了吧

这些是请小学生画的Google标志，很可爱吧～～哪天也会出现在Google首页喔！

这也是台北办公室没有的健身房，有专属体适能教练。另外也有泰式按摩，不过要收费的喔～一个小时人民币30元。

虽然把办公室装扮成有如婚礼场地般浪漫，但销售排还榜还是透露出业务部的理性与竞争。

销售光荣榜

涂鸦版不是应该画满方程式和流程图吗？

Rare Chinese map goes on display in the US

A rarely seen 400-year-old map that identified Florida as “the Land of Flowers” and put China at the centre of the world went on display Tuesday at the Library of Congress in the US.

Rare: The 17th Century map shows China at the centre of the world

The map created by Matteo Ricci was the first in Chinese to show the Americas. Ricci, a Jesuit missionary from Italy, was among the first westerners to live in what is now Beijing in the early 1600s. Known for introducing western science to China, Ricci created the map in 1602 at the request of Emperor Wanli.

Ricci’s map includes pictures and annotations describing different regions of the world. Africa was noted to have the world’s highest mountain and longest river. The brief description of North America mentions “humped oxen” or bison, wild horses and a region named “Ka-na-ta.”

Several Central and South American places are named, including “Wa-ti-ma-la” (Guatemala), “Yu-ho-t’ang” (Yucatan) and “Chih-Li” (Chile).

The document, printed on six rolls of delicate rice paper, is one of only two copies in existence in good condition. It is on show alongside the Waldseemuller world map – the first to use the name ‘America’

“In olden days, nobody had ever known that there were such places as North and South America or Magellanica,” he wrote, using a label that early mapmakers gave to Australia and Antarctica. “But a hundred years ago, Europeans came sailing in their ships to parts of the sea coast, and so discovered them.”

The Ricci map gained the nickname the “Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography” because it was so hard to find.

This map – one of only two in good condition – was purchased by the James Ford Bell Trust in October for $1 million, making it the second most expensive rare map ever sold. The library bought another of the world’s rarest maps, the Waldseemuller world map, which was the first to name “America,” for $10 million in 2003.

The Ricci map going on display had been held for years by a private collector in Japan and will eventually be housed at the Bell Library at the University of Minnesota. It map symbolizes the first connection between Eastern and Western thinking and commerce, said Ford W. Bell, co-trustee of the fund started by his grandfather, General Mills founder James Ford Bell.

Custodians at the Bell Library focus “on the development of trade and how that drove civilization – how that constant desire to find new markets to sell new products led to exchanges of knowledge, science, technology and really drove civilization,” said Bell, who is also president of the American Association of Museums. “So (the map) fits in beautifully.”

The map was being shown publicly for the first time in North America. It measures about 3.7 by 1.5 metres and is printed on six rolls of rice paper.

The Library of Congress rarely exhibits artifacts it does not own because its holdings are so vast, but curators made an exception for the Ricci map. It will be on view through April alongside the Waldseemuller map and later will be shown at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

The library also will create a digital image of the map to be posted online for researchers and students.

Ti Bin Zhang, first secretary for cultural affairs at the Chinese Embassy, said the map represents “the momentous first meeting of East and West” and was the “catalyst for commerce.”

No examples of the map are known to exist in China, where Ricci was revered and buried. Only a few original copies are known to exist, held by the Vatican’s libraries and collectors in France and Japan.