Society

Monday marked the end of an era for Japan. The curtain officially fell on its place as the world’s second largest economy, losing that rank to China. But as Asia watchers digest the shift in power and influence, Chinese students in Japan say China’s rise up the GDP ladder is neither a triumphant moment for China nor a woeful one for Japan.

“Even though (Japan) is No. 3 and was overtaken by China, I still think GDP is not a goal. GDP is just a tool for economic development,” said Xie Zhi Hai, a 28-year-old doctoral student at Waseda University in Tokyo. “The real measure is whether people enjoy a comfortable life, and in Japan I can feel that.”

Mr. Xie, who is earning a doctorate from Beijing University and Waseda University, points out that China’s per capita gross domestic product is still just one-tenth of Japan’s.

A U.S. government panel is poised to recommend that the president unravel an acquisition made by China's Huawei Technologies Co., after the Pentagon sought review of the deal, people familiar with the matter said.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is reviewing the telecommunications-equipment maker's $2 million deal last May to buy the assets of 3Leaf Systems, a Bay Area developer of technology that lets collections of server computers work together as a more powerful machine.

The interagency committee reviews cross-border deals with national-security implications and makes recommendations to the president. A decision by CFIUS on the Huawei deal is due Monday. The transaction still could be approved, and the president is free to disregard a recommendation by the committee.

CFIUS doesn't release information about a company under review, but a person familiar with the CFIUS process said a president has vetoed a foreign transaction only two or three times. Typically, a company will withdraw its application if it gets an indication the committee will recommend against a deal.

Coastal and inland cities are fiercely competing to attract migrant workers as China's labor shortage spreads to less-developed central and western regions.

In Southwest China's Chongqing, many firms have set up booths at railway and bus stations to persuade workers to stay home instead of returning to the coast. Tens of millions of migrant laborers travel by train or bus during the Spring Festival break, which ends on Feb 17.

At the city's North Railway Station on Friday, about a dozen workers told China Daily that they will stay in their hometown if they can get similar wages.

More than 70 percent of urban Chinese singles getting nearer to their "expiry date" for marriage are in the grip of depression, according to China's first survey of their mental health.

"Many women who have reached a certain age like me need to make a lot of effort to ward off marriage pressure from our parents, as they keep bringing up the topic," said a 29-year-old woman surnamed Qi in Shanghai.

Qi, who has a good job in a foreign-invested enterprise, said she has seen an increased incidence of depression among the unmarried people around her.

"I admit that I want a husband, but I won't get married only for marriage's sake," she said.

These "leftover" men and women, as they are called in Chinese, are defined by the All-China Women's Federation as single women above the age of 27 and single men older than 30.

The legal age for marriage is 20 for women and 22 for men.