China: Another heaven

Halfway down Shanghai's crowded, sparkling Nanjing Rd, a tiny, pretty young woman introduces herself in fluent English as Anna, an art student from Beijing. She is knowledgeable about New Zealand, intelligent in her analysis of Chinese development politics, and persuasive.

Anna and her classmates have put on an exhibition of their paintings; would I like to see? Tired of brushing off one fake Rolex hawker after another, I relent.

She takes me to a small rented office and unlocks the door.

There, she relieves me of 230 yuan ($47) for an "original" ying/yang fish wall-hanging that she claims to have painted herself.

Of course, it was probably mass-produced in a printing factory and sold in batches of 10,000. She has scammed me, I know it - but she has charmed me.

Forget the tanks that paraded through Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Thursday to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China; the nation's triumph is best represented by the Chinese people buying expensive clothes and accessories in the high-end boutiques of Nanjing Rd.

China is communist, yet its people may be the world's most natural and engaging capitalists.

Sixty years after Mao Zedong drove former leader Chiang Kai Shek from his last stronghold in the Sichuan capital of Chengdu, Chinese communism's most sacred sites are over-run by a young, thriving spirit of free enterprise.

Chengdu - get this - is now wooing international industry by offering a three-year corporate tax holiday to any company that relocates to the growing provincial city. Roger Douglas would be proud.

In Shanghai, the last, loyalist communists make pilgrimages to a small, two-storey villa on Huangpi Rd where, in 1921, their party was founded. Yet the building is now surrounded by high-priced restaurants, cocktail bars, and fountains on which wealthy young Chinese women will pose, elegant skirts split to expose a length of leg for the boyfriend's camera.

Across the road is a tall office block named One Corporate Avenue. And at T8 French/Asian fusion restaurant, just a few doors away, my companions and I enjoy Wagyu beef tenderloin (438 yuan / $89) and Sichuan lamb pie (278 yuan / $56).

Mao would roll in his granite mausoleum.

Shanghai is like Rome in its heyday, London when it led the Empire, New York as the world's immigrants flooded in little more than a century ago. Shanghai is a city at the peak of its powers, young and brash and confident and expansionist. It is expanding perhaps faster than any city, anywhere before. On the way from the airport, a new motorway interchange, bigger than Auckland's spaghetti junction, has been built in less than six months.

A quarter century ago, the tallest building was a 22-storey hotel. Now the city has 70 buildings more than 170m tall, and at least another 16 under construction. When the 632m Shanghai Tower is completed in 2014, it will be almost twice the height of Auckland's Sky Tower.

Shanghai has the world's longest sea bridge, at 36km. It has the world's fastest train, the 431km/h Maglev, which makes the 30km trip from Pudong International Airport to the city in a breathtaking seven minutes.

Tourism executive Jasmine Lee describes Shanghai as Little New York by day, Little Las Vegas by night. That is, if anything, an enormous compliment to New York and Las Vegas.

Lee grew up in a west Shanghai apartment with her parents and grandmother, a chamber pot in place of a bathroom.

But when the first international investment was allowed in 1992, her apartment block was demolished and replaced with office buildings. Her family was allocated a new 80sq m apartment, free, on the other side of town. Since then, residential real estate values have more than quadrupled. A two-bedroom apartment costs more than 2 million yuan - despite all real estate being leaseholds that revert to the developer at the end of the 70-year terms.

And it's not just Shanghai. Back in Sichuan - remote, provincial, industrial - the 60th anniversary is a chance to mark the recovery from last year's devastating earthquake, which claimed 68,000 lives. The province has used the opportunity to pour billions into new developments, providing 30,000 extra people with construction jobs.

The provincial government is celebrating with buntings at every motorway toll booth, banners on every lamp post. Like many other provinces, it is giving most employees an eight-day holiday. Those who do work will sign off civil weddings, but not divorces.

And the people are celebrating in bars and restaurants. On Bar St, a break-dancer entertains in a T-shirt emblazoned with the tongue-in-cheek claim, "I married a Communist".

Three years ago, 24-year-old Chengdu singer Jane Zhang, 24, won Supergirl (China's answer to American Idol) and soared to number one in the charts with the single, You help me find another heaven.

Old China proscribed religion, instead urging its people to seek solace in the state. Today, young China has found itself another heaven.

Getting there

Air New Zealand flies direct daily to Hong Kong, and up to three times a week to Shanghai. Economy fares start from $2000, plus airport taxes. For more information visit www.airnewzealand.co.nz, call
0800 737 000 or visit an Air New Zealand Holidays Store.

Hotels

Tibet Hotel
10 North Renmin Rd, Chengdu
Ph: 0086-28-8318 5678

Architect Philippe Heitz' design for this five-star hotel near the Jinjiang River is inspired by Tibetan culture and the requirements of US business travellers - but you are just as likely to run into a tour party of Buddhist monks.

Astor House Hotel
15 Huang Pu Rd, Shanghai
Ph: 0086-21-6324 6388

Established in 1846 - this grand old lady on the river has hosted
dignitaries, including US president Ulysses Grant, Albert Einstein, and Charlie Chaplin.

Jonathan Milne travelled to China courtesy of Air New Zealand.