Hard to argue with the signs as they fit into the bigger economic picture.

The Chinese economy has done fantastically well for a long time, and huge investments have been made into building all manner of things in China. But this means that there is now a great deal of overcapacity in the system, the owners of the un-needed factories, machinery and apartment blocks are not going to be able to pay back their financial backers. Mostly, the money came from Chinese banks, but also international banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered. The government can keep pumping money into the system to keep liquidity, but the private banks may cut off the supply of money soon because, if the BBC is to be believed, China's debts are increasing by 2-3 trillion $ a year.

Saw a thing on ChinaWire yesterday which said that American manufacturing is the most efficient in the world in terms of production per worker and costs only $4 on average more than Chinese made products. China is way behind in the efficiency ratings because they typically employ way more people than they need to do the job and don't pay enough attention to efficiency. When salaries were 1000RMB per month for migrant workers, that didn't matter so much. Now, salaries for migrant workers are around the 3000 mark, so China is no longer a super cheap place to manufacture goods. The Chinese economy was until recently totally dependent on exporting manufactured goods. When the heart of an economy takes hit after hit, the rest of the economy will suffer. Globalisation has made China rich, but also made it's main attraction - cheap labour - not so cheap anymore.

But, it's not all doom and gloom. China has a couple of things in it's favour. 1) a strong government with greater control over the economy than most.
2) A hardworking and motivated workforce who are prepared to seize opportunities.

Alien, you are right - the economy as a whole isn't shrinking, that would be a depression. But, manufacturing IS shrinking as companies move to Vietnam and other places cheaper than China. This means that the economic growth rate (as a percentage of the whole) is falling fast.

Sorry, perhaps I didn't write very clearly. By 'you', I mean the general you, or 'one'. One doesn't have to stay the entire length of one's visa.

10 year visa doesn't mean you have to stay, Peter. Long visas are nice in that they show greater trust towards foreigners and more efficient because it means less repeat paperwork.

Chinese can get a 6 month multiple entry tourist visa for the UK which lasts 2 years, guess the favour is returned to UK passport holders going to China

you 'could care less' - so you care somewhat? At least get the phrase right if you are going to use it.