China Luxury 
Forget any lingering black-and-white images you may have of the old Communist legacy of Mao. These days, businessmen are being embraced by the Communist Party leadership. For them, long marches, self-criticism, and drab proletarian clothing are out. Way out. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and self-indulgence are in.

European brands have done well here, notes Radha Chadha, a luxury-marketing consultant based in Hong Kong. But General Motors has made inroads as well, selling a growing number of cars even as the congestion slows Beijing traffic to a bicycle-like 7.5 miles an hour.

From the broad perspective, it's China's bustling population of 1.3 billion people that attracts the attention of mass retail outfits like Wal-Mart. That's a huge market for televisions, stereos, and fresh food. Beyond that, a new generation of affluent Chinese has even more money to spend. If you need proof, say retail analysts, just pick up Vogue China, which made its debut in September 2005 with an issue that clocked in at an encyclopedic 430 pages.

The economic reports coming out of China also no longer concern themselves with five-year central planning reports on steel and wheat production.

According to a recent report by Merrill Lynch/Capgemini, China is home to 236,000 millionaires. That's up a red-hot 12 percent in one year, just a step short of the U.S.'s 14 percent swell in the gilded crowd.

"The percentage of wealthy people is tiny, but the numbers are so vast," says Paul Husband, who's helping with the leasing of the Yintai Centre, 3.8 million square feet of luxury space - including 300,000 square feet reserved for retail - on Chang'an Avenue, Beijing's version of Fifth Avenue, which will start opening doors to Western retailers in spring 2007.