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... are populated by those poor lads that have been evicted/lured from their villages to fend for themselves and have become thugs out of necessity. Stay or leave, they lose. Deltaberry, I see where you come from and appreciate your views. Cheers.

Been there and back... with my liver (and both kidneys) intact, thank you.:D I'd suggest you read this book: Fighting for Breath: Living Morally and Dying of Cancer in a Chinese Village and you'll get a glimpse of how poor, powerless villagers still manage to their keep their dignity up while...

Ha ha .. but you're talking about the worst of them all here, the ones that want to become as brash and rich as their big city cousins but are too uncouth to achieve it. I was more thinking of the real countryside where the old human values can still be found. Every time I see my in-law folk...

Info I just got from a friend, usually well-informed: There was quite a panic earlier this year when the Chinese government said it was going to set up a centralised database of property ownership. Previously corrupt officials have been able to spread their buys around, hide their assets and...

Why... ? :)

OK I'll have a go, and sorry for the long post. Take guanxi, the Chinese word for relationship, one that has been deepened over a long period of time through the mutual offering of material and immaterial gifts. In traditional confucean society, guanxi derives directly from the Five Virtues...

Hong Kong's tightened the screws too... 15% tax on foreigners (i.e mainland Chinese who make up about half of the property sales). As a result the mainland Chinese market share has recently fallen to about 20%, hence a spike in other countries.

Some of this worldwide phenomenon may be linked to this: http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-great-china-corruption-fire-sale-20130122-2d3v5.html As a general rule I welcome foreign investment but this current wave looks quite unusual. Very different from the Japanese buying in Gold Coast...

Despite GM's unhelpful views reciprocity should not be dismissed out of hand. It is after all the basis for trade agreements between friendly nations, and we're in trade talks with China aren't we? For example I'd very much support reciprocity in the free circulation of news, ideas, books...

If you're prepared to drop your prejudices you may have raised an interesting point here, that of reciprocity (the granting of certain rights to a foreign national if the same rights are granted by their country to our citizens). Although simple in theory it leads to all sorts of...

Both Chinese nationals and foreign residents can buy residential property in China subject to the usual law and customs i.e. you buy the lease to occupy the land or the right to use it as the case may be for up to 70 years. This ownership has a value that is traded on the market. Similar in...

Why is this a problem? Why can't they have every right and duty of an Australian citizen the day they become one? Are you advocating for a ban on Chinese immigration? And limiting the wealth they can bring into this country? I hope you see the nonsense of this. Trying to push buttons? It...

You'd think he's only the boss of a SME... until you find out his wife's uncle is the local party secretary and each and every member of her family runs a highly profitable business due mostly to his political clout... A pattern that's repeated many times everywhere. Sure, most Chinese people...

That's creativity to me :) Yep there's a roaring trade between individuals exchanging currency, even giving out loans across borders at hefty commissions.

I'm not advocating for more control, just saying that if we have controls in place let's make sure it's working or we shouldn't bother at all. Actually a lot of things are very hard to control eg. the source of money. Things that are widely accepted as standard practice in China can be a no-no...

Hi TMNT, I'm not saying anything different. Yeah it's in their cultural make-up. My point is that as Australia takes in generations after generations of property-loving migrants, our cultural make-up is going to change in the same way.

Funny you mention the Greeks and Italians... I have this theory that each migration wave has brought to Australia more and more property-loving cultures and this has only increased the obsession that we Aussies have for property. An old friend of mine told me that when the "wogs" came in the...