Yao Ming is likely to play his 1st competitive game since having surgery on his foot in March at this week's Stankovic Cup pre-Olympic basketball tournament in Hangzhou, local media reported.

If this number - roughly equivalent to the population of Japan - do settle permanently in cities, it will not be their sweat so much as their spending power that shapes China's destiny.

In 2004 around 86% of Japanese firms planned to expand in China; last year the figure dropped to 77%, and 2% said they were actually scaling back their Chinese operations.