1. Modern Life
Nearly 88 million
Internet users in China
bought goods online in the
first half of 2009, up 38.9
percent year on year, accord-ing
to a December 2009
report by the China Internet
Network Information
Center (CNNIC), which
tracks China’s Internet-use.
Most of these shoppers were
white-collar workers and
students aged 18 to 30.
Interestingly, more women
bought goods online than
men, but more men pur-chased
large-ticket items.
Almost 90 percent of online
sales in the first half of 2009
came from consumer-to-consumer
websites, such as
Taobao.com, and CNNIC
predicted that 2009 online
shopping sales would reach
roughly ¥250 billion ($36.6
billion) by the end of the
year.
10 January–February 2010 chinabusinessreview.com
Short Takes
percent—a plurality of
respondents—said that “the
most important bilateral
relationship the United
States should have” is with
China. The next most
important bilateral relation-ship
was with Great Britain,
which received 23 percent
of the responses. Reflecting
the complexity of the rela-tionship,
most respondents
(56 percent) characterized
China as an “adversary,”
while only 33 percent char-acterized
the country as an
“ally.” Two percent said
China is both an ally and
an adversary.
US-China Relations
US President Barack
Obama visited
China for the first time in
November 2009, as part of
a nine-day tour of Asia. In
Beijing and Shanghai,
Obama met with high-level
PRC officials, attended a
formal state dinner, and
held a question-and-answer
session with local students.
Rather than pursue concrete
deliverables, the inaugural
visit aimed to underscore
the importance of the
US-China relationship and
lay the foundations for
cooperation between the
new US administration and
PRC leadership.
A Thomson Reuters/Ipsos
poll of 1,077 Americans
two weeks before the visit
highlighted the importance
of Sino-American ties.
According to Reuters, 34
Opinion Attitudes and
published on the World
Bank’s website, more than
three-quarters of respon-dents
said that climate
change was a “very serious”
or “somewhat serious”
problem. Moreover, 78 per-cent
said that “climate
change should be given pri-ority,
even if it causes slow-er
economic growth and
some loss of jobs.”
Consumer trends appear to
reflect popular sentiment for
green thinking. A recent
RSA Group report found
that 45 percent of Chinese
consumers were willing to
pay a 5–10 percent premium
for eco-friendly products,
In the run-up to the
December 2009 United
Nations Climate Change
Conference in Copenhagen,
Denmark, China pledged to
reduce its carbon intensity
per unit of gross domestic
product to 40–45 percent of
2005 levels by 2020. The
pledge included commit-ments
to increase the share of
China’s energy derived by
non-fossil energy, increase
forest cover, and improve
energy efficiency and use of
clean-coal and renewable
energies. In the statement,
however, Beijing reiterated
China’s long-standing posi-tion
that, as a developing
nation, it has “common but
differentiated responsibilities.”
According to a Regus
Group survey, the stress
level of Chinese workers in
corporations is much higher
than in other parts of the
world. Eighty-six percent of
Chinese respondents report-ed
that their stress levels
were “higher” or “much
higher” than in 2007, with
24–30 year olds working for
foreign companies seeming-ly
the most affected. This
compares with about 64
percent in Belgium and
Mexico, the countries with
the second- and third-high-est
stress levels, respectively.
More than 40 percent of
Chinese respondents who
reported elevated stress lev-els
blamed an “increased
focus on profitability”—
perhaps unsurprising given
the economic downturn.
Thinking Green
Chinese citizens also
acknowledge that more
needs to be done to combat
climate change, and they
are taking the initiative.
According to a survey con-ducted
in the fall of 2009
by the Program on
International Public
while 30 percent would pay
a 1–5 percent premium. In
contrast, consumers in
Western countries “were gen-erally
willing to pay only a
1–5 percent premium for a
greener product or service.”
In addition, China Daily
recently reported that
China’s shoppers have taken
to using cloth and canvas
shopping bags since the cen-tral
government banned ven-dors
from giving their cus-tomers
free plastic bags in
June 2008. The use of plastic
bags in Chinese supermar-kets
has dropped an estimat-ed
66 percent since the ban
took effect, saving 1.6 mil-lion
tons of petroleum.

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