At current prices, that will only buy half a square meter of an apartment in downtown Beijing.

CNN: Feeling blue within China's red-hot economy

Sprawling across 180 acres of downtown Beijing, this vast palace served as the symbolic and political centre of the Chinese world for more than five centuries.

BBC: The perfect trip: China

Hu set off for downtown Beijing, working the phone and e-mailing from the back seat of a car, directing her staff to rent a satellite phone and get a crew to Sichuan.

NEWYORKER: The Forbidden Zone

In the newsroom of Caijing, a sleek and open gray brick space on the nineteenth floor of the Prime Tower, in downtown Beijing, her arrival is heralded by the urgent click-clack of heels down the hallway.

NEWYORKER: The Forbidden Zone