China at the crossroads  7
Beijing vs. local governments:
it’s getting more complicated  9
China’s contradictions and
stress points  11
Macro-micro disconnect  14
High growth vs. low returns  16
Excess liquidity vs. credit crunch  17
Slow growth vs. strong RMB and high rates  18
Urbanisation: looking beyond
the obvious  20
Who pays for it?  20
A host of related issues  22
Why over-ambition leads to
oversupply 28
A state of loss  28
Beijing acts  31
Boom town blues  31
You’ve got competition  33
The good news: infrastructure, scale, logistics and brains  39
Go West: up to a point  40
A new growth engine  40
Challenges 44
Rail: a growth anchor  47
A new beginning  47
Growth and debt  48
How the system works  52
Local government hierarchy  52
Provinces 55
Eastern Region  56
Beijing (北京) 57
Fujian (福建) 62
Guangdong (广东) 66
Hainan (海南) 71
Hebei (河北) 75
Jiangsu (江苏) 79
Shandong (山东) 84
Shanghai (上海) 88
Tianjin (天津) 93
Zhejiang (浙江) 97
Western Region  101
Chongqing (重庆) 103
Gansu (甘肃) 108
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (广西) 112
Guizhou (贵州) 116