BizChina

By Tom Miller and Will Freeman Beijingers call the hot and sticky months of July and August the “sauna” season. On muggy summer evenings, sensible locals sweat it out in the capital’s old lanes with sticks of fatty lamb kebabs and cold bottles of Yanjing beer. But real men roll up their T-shirts under their armpits, ditch [...]

By Tom Miller Beijing and Shanghai are currently the only two Chinese cities that have unquestionable “megacity” status, with populations well in excess of 10m. But over the next 15 years, 60 new cities with populations of 1.5m-5m are likely to sprout in China, including six new cities – Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Chengdu and Wuhan – [...]

By Kam Wing Chan Kam Wing Chan, professor of geography at the University of Washington, is an expert on Chinese population statistics and is a guest contributor to the Dragonbeat blog this week. How big are Chinese cities? That depends on how you measure them. Back in 2005, Time magazine proclaimed that Chongqing had become “the largest city [...]

By Tom Miller And lo, did Beijing wave its magic wand, and there was much rejoicing! China’s economy grew 7.9 per cent faster in the second quarter of this year than it did during the same period last year. That means GDP expanded by 7.1 per cent in the first half and is now set to hit [...]