Red Chips are Hong Kong-listed offshore subsidiaries of Chinese state-owned enterprises.

FORBES: Foreign Companies to List Shares in Shanghai

As Jardine Fleming, a Hong Kong stockbroker, points out, the creation of red chips is merely a continuation of a trend that began in the early 1970s with a big increase in the number of listed companies controlled by Hong Kong Chinese families.

ECONOMIST: Hong Kong��s handover

Hong Kong has seen fewer and fewer major listings on its once red-hot share market.

BBC: Chinese insurer PICC rises 8% on Hong Kong debut

Andy Xie, chief China economist for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in Hong Kong, points out that if foreign creditors don't roll over debts for red-chip companies, most of which are severely overstretched financially, the latter could start going under too.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia

In Hong Kong for the opening of a traveling retrospective of her work, she arrived at the exhibition, her characteristic red hair contrasting with her pale complexion, with a small entourage of suitably fashionable and vaguely mysterious looking characters in tow.

CNN: The world according to Vivienne Westwood