Poverty rules, yet super rich live in a class of their own 05/03/2006 BY HIROTAKA YAMAGUCHI, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
SHANGHAI--Tossing aside its Communist theories, China is witnessing a distinctly capitalist phenomenon: the rise of the jin ling, or super rich. Like elsewhere around the globe, many of the country's wealthiest people are private entrepreneurs or senior executives working for foreign conglomerates. These rising stars are mostly in their 30s or 40s. While the super rich work long hours, they live very well, spending lavishly on imported cars, luxury brands and overseas travel. The advent of these big spenders has produced an explosion in the domestic market for luxuries. Outlets for world-famous brands are popping up everywhere in China's biggest cities. Predictably, this has also led to a corresponding widening of the gap between the rich and poor. Serious social problems are on the rise. On the outskirts of Shanghai, a two-story private home stands amid high-rise apartment buildings. The elegant house is surrounded by trees and boasts 500 square meters of floor space. It has three bedrooms, a recreation room where the owner likes to play mah-jongg and a maid's room. On the second floor, a wide-screen television takes pride of place in the spacious living room. Five luxury cars, including a Mercedes-Benz and a Bentley, are lined up in the garage. Zhang Jingjing, 31, lives here with her husband, a medical doctor, and her parents. In January, Zhang blew about 100,000 yuan (about 1.4 million yen) in a single shopping spree in Hong Kong. And from late January, she took her family to the United States to celebrate the Chinese New Year. As head of a private real estate development company founded by her father, Zhang rakes in about 1 million yuan annually. She graduated from prestigious junior and senior high schools in Shanghai, and later studied business administration in Australia. Three years ago, she took over from her father. Riding the Shanghai real-estate boom, the company reaped big profits developing housing in the suburbs. Yet Zhang says she is constantly worried about the possible collapse of the asset-inflated "bubble" economy. "When it comes right down to it, my own judgment is all I have to rely on," says Zhang, who is studying management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her classmates are people who run their own companies or high-ranking executives in foreign firms. Yan Min, 33, a friend of Zhang, is vice president of the Shanghai arm of Finnish mobile communications firm Nokia Co. She oversees a marketing and sales staff of 3,000. Yan makes about 50,000 yuan a month, 10 times more than she earned eight years ago as a fresh recruit. With bonuses, her annual income comes to 800,000 yuan. "Some people who joined this company at the same time as I did quit after a few years. But I have never missed a chance to contribute to the firm's 30 percent market share here and its $10 billion (1.2 trillion yen) in annual sales," she said. Together, Yan and her husband, who runs a venture company, bring home 1.8 million yuan a year. That is 45 times more than the average annual income of typical Shanghai residents. It is nearly 300 times more than what rural farmers make. There is a downside. Yan works 12 hours a day, so she seldom spends much time with her spouse. "I have to make an appointment to have dinner with my husband," she said, only half joking. When a pro golf tournament took place in Shanghai in November, only the rich and elite could afford the tickets, which cost up to 2,000 yuan. During the tournament, the spectators were not only captivated by famous golfers like America's Tiger Woods. They were also fascinated by Sharp Corp.'s 65-inch liquid crystal display screens, which sell in China for a cool 188,000 yuan. The screens, which showed scores and the golfers up close, were installed in the clubhouse. At first, the local Sharp dealer did not plan to sell them during the tournament, but by its end, the company had sold 40 TVs, including seven 65-inch models. "LCD televisions don't sell this well when we exhibit them at big stores," said one Sharp Corp. employee. China's nouveau riche are hungry for foreign brands. In November, a dozen French lingerie makers held a fashion show in Shanghai, featuring the slogan "Bringing elegance and the latest fashions (to China)." Fancy lingerie with price tags of 700 to 2,000 yuan is selling well, and the market for foreign lingerie is now worth nearly 30 billion yuan. Foreign luxury brands are working hard to find quality sales outlets to reach the new elite. Some are pushing to open flagship stores. Louis Vuitton has opened a 800-square-meter outlet in Beijing, which rivals the size of the one in Tokyo. Bernard Arnault, chairman of the parent company, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, said more customers in China have gained confidence in the brand. He said the store's size is just right for showing off new products. The company plans to open two or three shops annually in China. Arnault expects Louis Vuitton sales in China soon to exceed that of Japan. Chen Tianqiao, 32, is typical of China's rich elite. He started up the Shanda Networking online gaming portal in 1999, and the site now has more than 400 million registered members--the world's largest. His company is listed on a U.S. stock exchange. According to a survey by research institute Hurun, Chen's personal worth was 1.17 billion yuan in 2005--making him the country's third-richest man. Jin ling, which literally translates as "money collar," appears only in the most recent Chinese dictionaries. The word derives from bai ling (white-collar worker). According to the official Xinhua News Agency, China now has about 342,000 super rich. Wealthy entrepreneurs began emerging after China announced its shift toward a market economy and the opening up to the outside world in 1979. At the time, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping advocated a policy of allowing a few people to get rich, hoping that a new class of entrepreneurs would emerge. The country soon began seeing rich farmers, with annual incomes of more than 10,000 yuan, thanks to a government plan to create economically independent farmers. As private companies spread across China's cities, the number of wealthy entrepreneurs has exploded in recent years. At the same time, the contrast between the rich and poor has grown especially clear between the coastal and inland regions and between cities and rural villages. Of China's 1.3 billion population, at least 900 million people in rural villages still live in dire poverty. Dealing with the disparity is one of the government's biggest priorities, officials said.(IHT/Asahi: May 3,2006) http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200605030101.html Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
