Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping once famously said, "To get rich is glorious." Of course, that was back in the days when China was moving from a backward, controlled economy to a market economy and his words were meant to instill self-motivation and remind everyone of the rewards that one gets for doing hard work.
But now, after several decades of stunning growth, China is the world's second-largest economy and the country is awash with billionaires. Is this era of nouveaux riches quite so glorious as the gap between rich and poor in China widens?
I asked a foreign friend, a Danish IT engineer who has been working in China on and off for more than a year, what he thought.
"I have, of course, noticed all the rich people here and seen the huge gap between the lifestyles of people living with their family in one small room and people living in villas and driving expensive cars you would rarely see in Europe," he said. "I think for most Europeans, the amount of money some Chinese people have is almost inconceivable."
He said some people no doubt create real value and contribute greatly to China's economic growth. They may deserve to be rich, he said, but others don't.
"I think every country needs people with great ideas and enthusiasm to make any progress, and if they do, they deserve rewards," he said.
"What I hate to see are people making money without contributing anything," he added. "Like property speculators."
Many Chinese people would agree - and in more aggressive terms.
A survey by the Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences last year found 96 percent of respondents saying they "hated" rich people because of the unfair distribution of national wealth.
"A small number of rich people are possessing so much resources in society," said Nicole Ni, a young woman working in a government office in Shanghai. "On one hand, we are educated that we must make efforts and we will harvest, but on the other hand, reality tells us that promotions are dependent on your relationship with the bosses. Certainly someone will feel distressed."
In separate reports, data from the China Academy of Social Sciences showed more than 90,000 cases of social protests in China in 2006, rising to 120,000 in 2008. Latest data are not available.
There seems little doubt that the gap between rich and poor is creating instability. Yet, reports about the wealthy are not transparent enough to give us a clear picture of what's really going on in society.
Mysterious figures
Since March, I've read numerous reports about who are the richest people, broken down into every conceivable category: celebrities, entrepreneurs, and billionaires.
The Hurun Report said in April that the Chinese mainland is now home to 960,000 people with personal wealth of more than 10 million yuan (around US$1.5 million), an increase of almost 10 percent from a year ago.
Forbes China reported in April that 213 billionaires of Chinese origin boasted a combined fortune of US$566.9 billion, comprising 12.6 percent of the wealth of the 1,210 dollar-denominated billionaires in the world. China's robust manufacturing and property sectors were credited with creating most of the super rich.
There is no end of magazines and institutions releasing wealth reports in China, including Forbes, the Hurun Report, China Merchants Bank, and Merrill Lynch. Each compilation is based on different criteria, which tends to make one wonder if any of them are all that accurate.
According to Rupert Hoogewerf, founder and chief researcher with the Hurun Report, the magazine calculates individual wealth based on an estimation of the official Gini coefficient - a measure of the gap between rich and poor in a country - and on data collected from large property agencies, car dealers and private banks.
Hurun also includes personal homes in its calculation, which means that owning two flats in a city like Shanghai would qualify an individual as one with assets of more than 10 million yuan.
Forbes said it spends US$3 million a year compiling its global wealth list and includes mainly owners of listed companies. A large part of its calculation is based on the share prices of companies owned, which, of course, tend to fluctuate.
China Merchants Bank and Merrill Lynch calculate "investable assets," without specifying how.
Perhaps because of all the doubts about the credibility of such data, or maybe from a desire to eschew what could be considered unwanted publicity, there are individuals who shy away from appearing on these lists.
Yan Jiehe, chief executive officer with China Pacific Construction Group, reportedly declined to be listed with Hurun and Forbes again after ranking second on the Hurun Wealth List in 2005.
In the same year, Yan's name didn't appear on the Forbes Wealth List amid reports that he had specifically asked that he not be included. Not long after, Yan was accused by several banks of failing to pay his debts, arousing public questions about the credibility of his wealth.
"The lists of Hurun and Forbes don't speak to anything. They don't have authority," Yan was quoted as saying.
For many ordinary people, the only interest in these wealth lists comes from the vicarious thrill of seeing how many of the big names will eventually be accused of economic crimes. Wealth lists have been dubbed "pig-killing lists" by many web users.
The Hurun Report released a "special report" in January, saying that 24 individuals who appeared on rich lists have landed in jail for various crimes. Thirteen of them were involved either in property development or infrastructure construction.
Both Hurun and Forbes claim that the property sector remains the biggest generator of wealth for Chinese individuals.
"But there is a trend that property investors will fall behind the lists as government control on the sector tightens, and we can now see more newcomers from the Internet and machinery industries." said Russell Flannery, head of Forbes China. "China's regulatory system will also improve the transparency of companies."
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