18 Striking Facts About China

For all the crazy stories you've heard about China, the world's biggest country is going to keep blowing your mind.

The speed and size of economic development going in China right now has never happened before. In just ten years, a small emerging market has transformed into a geopolitical bruiser that can go toe-to-toe with Ben Bernanke.

Like it or not, China plays a critical role in the global economy from here out. Let's hope it hope doesn't crash.

China consumes 53% of the world's cement... and 48% of the world's iron ore... and 47% of the world's coal... and the majority of just about every major commodity

Image: Flickr User NeilsPhotography (www.flickr.com

Source: Jeremy Grantham via Michael Pettis

China's economy grew 7 times as fast as America's over the past decade (316% growth vs. 43%)

China's GDP per capita is the 91st-lowest in the world, below Bosnia & Herzegovina

Image: ap

85 percent of artificial Christmas trees are made in China. So are 80 percent of toys

Image: jypsygen on flickr

Source: National Geographic

If he spent his ENTIRE YEARLY INCOME on housing, the average Beijing resident could buy 10 square feet of residential property

Obviously he can't spend his entire income on housing...

A square meter of residential property in Beijing costs an average of 26,000 yuan (US$3,800), but the average per capita monthly income is only 2,000 yuan, according to Asia Times.

China has more pigs than the next 43 pork producing countries combined

Source: China Real Time Report

Chinese consume 50,000 cigarettes every second

Source: WHO

America's fastest "high speed" train goes less than half as fast as the new train between Shanghai and Beijing (150 mph vs 302 mph)

Image: China.org.cn

Read more here >

China's enormous Gobi Desert is the size of Peru and expanding 1,400 square miles per year due to water source depletion, over-foresting, and over-grazing

Source: Wikipedia

China has 64 million vacant homes, including entire cities that are empty

Source: Chinese Academy Of Social Sciences

More amazing photos of Chinese ghost cities here >

The world's biggest mall is in China... but it has been 99% empty since 2005

Source: Daily Mail

Nearly 10,000 Chinese citizens each year are sucked into unsanctioned 'black jails'

Image: Reuters

Source: Human Rights Watch. Black jails emerged following the prohibition of arbitrary detention. They are notorious for prisoner rape, starvation and abuse.

By 2025, China will build enough skyscrapers to fill TEN New York-sized cities

"[By 2025,] 40 billion square meters of floor space will be built -- in five million buildings. 50,000 of these buildings could be skyscrapers -- the equivalent of ten New York Cities."

Source: Mckinsey, "Preparing for China's urban billion"

By 2030, China will add more new city-dwellers than the entire U.S. population.

“[By 2030] China's cities will have added 350 million people—more than the entire population of the United States today.”         

Source: Mckinsey, "Preparing for China's urban billion"

There are already more Christians in China than Italy

Due to the extremely rapid expansion of Christianity in China, there are now an estimated 54 million Christians in the country, comprised of about 40 million Protestants and 14 million Catholics.

Italy has just 60 million people in total, of which only 79% are Christian these days. Which means Italy has 47.4 million Christians, a full 12% less than China.

Source: Wikipedia, Shanghaist

Chinese are almost twice as likely to believe in evolution as Americans

An impressive 74 percent of Chinese believe in evolution, better than Mexico (69%), Argentina (68%) and Great Britain (68%)

Only Russia (48%), USA (42%), South Africa (41%) and Egypt (25%) remain skeptical about Darwin's theory.

Source: British Council

China executes three times as many people as the rest of the world COMBINED... and uses mobile execution vans for efficiency.

China carried out at least 1,718 executions in 2008, three times as many as the rest of the world, according to Amnesty International. Some analysts put the yearly figure closer to 6,000.

Many executions are done on the road using vehicles such as those designed by Jinguan Motors:

"Makers of the death vans say the vehicles and injections are a civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely. The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China "promotes human rights now," says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van in which "Devil" Zhang took his final ride."

Source: The Guardian, USA Today

When you buy Chinese stocks, you are basically financing the Chinese government. Eight of Shanghai's top ten stocks are government owned

Eight of the ten largest stocks on the Shanghai Stock Exchange are nothing but state-controlled companies:

• PetroChina
• Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
• Sinopec
• Bank of China
• China Shenhua Energy Company
• China Life Insurance Company
• Bank of Communications

Source: Wikipedia etc.

Bonus: Chinese GDP could overtake the U.S. in less than 15 years

Image: Associated Press

"China's growth will be underpinned by a rapid expansion in emerging market economies, which will account for about 70% of global GDP growth in the coming decade, Deutsche Bank's Chief Economist for Greater China, Jun Ma, told an investment conference in Hong Kong,"

"By the early 2020s, China will over[take] the U.S. in terms of GDP, Ma said, noting the forecast is dramatically stepped-up from his views two years earlier."

'"China's nominal GDP growth could surpass that of the United States within ten years, a period which will likely be accompanied by a gradual appreciation of the yuan," Ma said.'

Source: MarketWatch

So what happens if China crashes?

10 U.S. States That Will Get Murdered If China Slows Its Imports >

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facts-about-china-blow-your-mind-2011-5?op=1#ixzz1NjWlnmNV