Until 2007 regulation was rather lax, allowing start-ups to dominate the industry, notes Bill Bishop, a longtime China-watcher.

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Figures quoted by the noted China-watcher James Mann in his book About Face showed that Japanese companies increased their share of many key Chinese markets at the expense of US and European rivals in the early 1990s.

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The Washington Post cites Nicholas Lardy, a respected China-watcher at the Peterson Institute, as saying that urban housing stock accounts for 41% of household wealth in China, compared to 26% in the U.S., though mortgage lending is much more restrictive in China.

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