Society

A recent study by the Economic Intelligence Unit indicates that Chinese consumers only make up 5% of the world’s $36.9 trillion consumption. However, we need to keep in mind that Chinese consumer market barely existed about a decade ago. The trend in Chinese consumption is, significantly, moving upward.

Retail spending has increased steadily at 15% and more in recent years. Chinese consumer confidence remained high even during the worldwide recession in 2008-2009. China has already become the world’s largest market for automobiles, television sets and cell phones, and the world’s second largest market for luxury goods.

It has been a big news month for China’s top two sportswear brands, Li Ning and Anta, each of which announced endorsement deals with NBA headliners, the number two pick in the draft Evan Turner and Boston Celtics star Kevin Garnett. But the small news item that caught my eye was the mid-year report this week from a third Chinese sportwear label, Xtep International Holdings: revenues and profits up 22%.

Then I looked at the Hong Kong-listed company’s stock price, with mild professional trepidation as I had singled out the company for an optimistic appraisal in Forbes Asia 16 months ago, interviewing the supremely confident founder Ding Shuipo. I need not have worried. The stock had spiked 140% since I met Ding, and is trading six times higher than at its financial crisis nadir at the end of October 2008, making the company worth $1.7 billion on paper, or 18 times earnings. That makes it look cheap by comparison to its two leading competitors, whose shares have also surged. Anta, for example, is trading more than seven times higher than its darkest day in that October. Investors are valuing it at $5 billion, or 27 times earnings.

Fireworks in New York on July 4? Pretty enough. But I want more noise, more flash, bigger crowds, and an obvious historical context. Thanks to China, I’ve gotten used to having my symbolic moments more orchestrated. Something more heavy-handed, over the top, and obvious. Like the Beijing 2008 Olympics or the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.

Those of us old enough to remember Montreal ’67’s monorail and geodesic dome, the magic of the Unisphere as touchstone of New York’s 1964 World’s Fair, the Crystal Palace in Kew Gardens…well no one is that old. You get the point: the adolescent flush of newly felt power, shiny and bold; the magic of symbol large enough to walk through. Back before we were all jaded by theme parks, it meant something to be part of a nation that built monuments to its own economy.

“We need to get that many visitors to the Expo to outdo Japan… You know how Chinese feel about the Japanese, don’t you?”

I heard this comment yesterday from a cab driver in Shanghai, who chuckled when he said it, sounding more bemused than virulently nationalistic, as I chatted with him about the curious obsession in the Chinese press with whether or not the proclaimed target of 70 million visitors to the country’s first World’s Fair would be reached.