Is farming still what Chinese peasants do? In most of the countryside, the income generated by farming remains far below what can be earned in even low-paid industrial or services jobs in the cities. For rural youth, the simplest path to social mobility continues to be migration to industrial areas.
On 16 JUNE 2015, the Shanghai Composite Index, a measure of the price of all stocks traded at the Shanghai Stock Exchange, reached an all-time high of 5,166 points. Share prices began falling the next day in a series of dramatic drops interrupted by occasional recoveries, dipping as low as 2,964 on 24 August and ending the year on 30 December at 3,572.
During the heyday of China’s economic miracle, being a patriot and a good businessman were one and the same. In late September, legendary Hong Kong business magnate Li Ka-shing 李嘉诚 encountered the wrath of China’s state media and nationalistic netizens when he moved his investments away from China.
China has been pushing for the internationalisation of its currency, the renminbi (RMB), since the late-2000s. Ever since setting up the first RMB-denominated bond (also known as Dim Sum Bonds) market in Hong Kong in 2009, China has been building the financial infrastructure necessary to facilitate international transactions in RMB and to liberalise its capital account and capital markets. In 2015, China.
