Liu Shijin, former Deputy Director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, argues in a recent People’s Daily op-ed that China will become a “high income economy” within the next eight years.

Liu says China is currently a “middle income economy”, the third of four income stages as defined by the World Bank. Liu claims that China’s road to the forth income stage is “inevitable”.

China rose from a low income economy to a lower-middle economy in 1999 largely due to significant growth in foreign trade. The current upper-middle economy began in 2010, and is predicted to last until 2023 at which point China’s economy is expected to transition again.

However, before China can become a high income economy, it must first bypass the “middle income trap”. This occurs when an up-and-coming market becomes stagnant, losing its forward momentum. According to Liu, while China is at risk of stalling due to a lack of innovation and cheap labor, reforms made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China will overcome the middle income trap. These structural reforms will get rid of stock reserves, raise the quality and efficiency of production supply, lower costs, and increase productivity and competitiveness.

However, Liu cautioned that China still lags behind other developed countries. Liu noted that China’s current gross domestic product per capita (at purchasing power parity), one of the indicators of a country’s standard of living, is only $12,600 compared to $55,000 in the USA and $110,000 in Luxembourg.

Zhuang Juzhong, co-author of a 2012 report commissioned by the Asian Development Bank and Peking University, argued that China’s continued growth is largely dependent upon adopting an economic strategy that fosters innovation, inclusiveness and green technology. “Under such a scenario, the economy could grow 8 percent annually from 2010 to 2020, and 6 percent annually from 2020 to 2030,” said Zhuang.

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The driver, a 20 year-old Yiwu resident named Liu, walked away with only minor injuries. Liu admitted that he was unable to avoid the collision because he was driving too fast. He had only a provincial driver’s license and accepted all responsibility for the crash. Police are continuing their investigation.

The McLaren P1 began production in 2013. All 375 finished models have been sold. The electric and gas hybrid car features a 903 horsepower engine that can go 0-100 kilometers per hour in just 2.8 seconds.

Here are more photos from the crash:

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As different denominations have different lengths, some netizens have taken on smaller denominations to show that their wrists are especially slender. A red one hundred yuan bill is 15.5 centimetres long, a blue ten yuan bill is 14, and a green one yuan bill is just 13 centimeters long.

The “money wrist” is just the latest in a long line of online memes that have become popular among Chinese women over the last year as a means of fulfilling an arbitrary standard of beauty.

Tallying up all of the recent Internet beauty memes leaves Chinese women with a remarkably unattainable standard of physical traits:

• flexibility and grace (folding hands behind back meme)
• long necks (roll of coins on collarbone meme)
• large breasts (groping own breasts meme; underboob pencil meme)
• slender waist (A4 paper waist meme; belly button meme)
• tiny, compact knees (iPhone 6 leg meme)

Interestingly, the money wrist test flies in the face of the commonly held belief among Chinese that paper money is filthy. Paper currency is considered to be so dirty in China that it some physicians have blamed it on the spread of genital warts.

Last year, a gynecologist at Wenzhou City People’s Hospital concluded that two bank tellers contracted genital warts after handling money at work without washing their hands before going to the bathroom. And these are not isolated cases. In 2005, doctors informed a cashier named Li Jia, who had never had a boyfriend, that she contracted gonorrhea from handling paper money at not washing her hands before using the toilet. While in 2004, a 19 year-old cashier named Guo Jihong in Changchun contracted genital warts despite claims that she also had never had a boyfriend.

Chinese authorities routinely remind the public to wash their hands after touching paper currency.

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According to an infographic published in the China Daily, outbound tourism really started to takeoff in 2010. Since then, the country has seen an average annual increase between 13 and 15 million tourists.

The numbers however are somewhat misleading. For example, in 2014, 60 percent of the 107 million Chinese tourists that went “overseas” actually went to China’s special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau and the self-governed island of Taiwan.

One thing that is abundantly clear, however, is that when Chinese travel, they’re not shy about spending money. According to the infographic, 54 percent of Chinese tourists are willing to spend up to 20 percent of their annual salary on travel; 15 percent claim they are happy to spend over 30 percent.

This is welcome news to popular tourist destinations such as South Korea and Australia. The 6.1 million Chinese tourists that traveled to South Korea last year contributed $22 billion to the local economy, accounting for 2.6 percent of the country’s GDP. Meanwhile, the one million Chinese tourists that went to Australia spent $5.4 billion.

Here’s the entire infographic for you to peruse:

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The plan was initially introduced as a pilot project exclusively in Shandong Province, however, according to Chen, the one yuan note will gradually be phased out across the country.

Support for the policy remains divided. Pro-bill advocates argue that the one yuan coin is too heavy, and will require a change purse. Pro-coin advocates argue one yuan bills are often wrinkled and dirty, and are easily torn and destroyed.

Interestingly, when it comes to use of the one yuan coin versus the bill, there appears be a geographical preference: bills in the north, and coins to the south. While northerners look down upon yuan coins as being “cheap” and “inferior”, southerners traditionally prefer coins due to the heavy humidity.

The passing of the one yuan bill will join the ranks of other lost denominations: the one mao bill, the five mao bill, and the two yuan bill. However while it has taken the two yuan bill ten years to finally be removed from circulation, the others routinely appear when getting change.

Whichever side of the debate you may fall on, there are two indisputable facts in favor of coins: they last longer than paper currency, and are less likely to spread germs and disease.

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Bank of China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, the Agricultural Bank of China, and the Bank of Communications will waive their fees. Users will also be issued a free allowance of 5,000 yuan via online banking transfers.

“This is a specific measure to protect savers’ interest and improve banks’ service quality,” read the announcement, in part.

The China Merchants’ Bank eliminated mobile banking fees back in September 2015, as did regional banks like the Bank of Shanghai and the Bank of Ningbo.

The new policy was inspired by the rising competition of third-party payment services, such as Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s Tenpay. However, contrary to how Chinese banks are waiving similar fees, TenCent had announced it will charge Wechat Wallet users a fee for withdrawing cash to personal bank accounts.

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Titled “2015 National Report on Chinese People’s Welfare Development,” the study concludes that economic inequality has resulted in massive disparity in China, notably in access to quality health care and education.

At the heart of these findings is the Gini coefficient used to measure the distribution of wealth in a country. A Gini coefficient of zero means there is no income gap among citizens, and wealth is evenly distributed. As the value increases, so too does economic inequality. The highest value is one, at which point inequality is at its peak, such as one person controlling all wealth while everyone else has none.

While there is some debate as to where China currently resides on the coefficient, most experts agree that economic inequality is getting worse. Thirty years ago, China’s Gini coefficient hovered around 0.3. According to the CFPS, by 2012 it had increased to 0.49, much higher than the 0.4 generally held to be dangerously high.

The CFPS report also claims there is massive disparity in education opportunities in China. The report states that, since the 1960s, educational inequality between urban and rural areas has continued to rise, peaking in the 80s. The report identified issues such as the hukou (residence permit), parents’ education, party membership, and place of birth as factors that determine who has access to the best education in China.

Chinese wealth has grown immeasurably in the past few years. Last year for the first time ever, China had more than one million high net worth individuals (HNWI), defined as individuals with investable assets over RMB 10 million ($1.6 million).

Also last year, China overtook Japan to become the second-richest country in the world, holding $22.8 trillion in household wealth. At the same time, Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, named China as having the largest middle class in the world with 109 million people.

The CFPS report canvassed 14,960 households from across 25 provinces and cities, and 160 regions and counties.

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The “Lucky Money” series offered by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing includes a single $1 bill and a sheet of eight $2 bills with a serial numbers considered to be “lucky” by Chinese. The “Lucky Money” either has currency with serial numbers that begin with “8888” (signifying “luck”) or “168” (signifying “prosperity forever”).

Interested? The $1 “Year of the Monkey” and “Prosperity Note” bill both cost $5.95. The $2 “8888 Lucky Money Sheet” costs $58.88.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing have been offering the “Lucky Money” series since 2000, and they have proven to be big sellers. With a record 108,888 notes for sale, the Year of the Dragon “Lucky Money” series sold out within a week in November 2011.

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While they appear to be the same “red Mao’s” as before, these new 100 yuan notes are equipped with new security features that make them more difficult to counterfeit and easier to be recognized by bank machines. It should become easier than ever for the average person to discern an authentic bill from a fake one, and it doesn’t just involve rubbing Mao’s shoulder for verification.

So what’s the difference between the old and new bills?

New security features on the revamped bills include: the ink of the denomination changes color from green to gold when the note is tilted, there’s an additional serial number printed vertically on the right side (seen printed in blue), there’s now a dotted security strip on the face of the bill (referred to as an “optical-variable security thread”) that changes color from hot pink to green, depending on the angle; and the image of the Great Hall of the People on the back of the bill is now slightly raised.

The change has been a long time coming, with the last set of alterations to the 100 yuan note made in 2005. And yet, China has been dealing with counterfeit money for some time now. The proliferation of counterfeit bills rose by a quarter last year, amounting to 532 million yuan ($85 million).

However, anyone hoping for a larger denomination than 100 will be disappointed. As yet, there has been no announcement about a possible 500 yuan note.

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After decades of double-digit economic development resulting from economic reforms, China has lifted millions of its citizens out of poverty while providing a higher standard of living that simply wasn’t possible a generation prior. After having climbed its way from almost nothing to the very top of the world, this news should be welcomed in China as a milestone in the country’s development. Except it wasn’t.

Chinese netizens ridiculed the idea that they are the world’s largest middle class, instead complaining that many of them still aren’t able to make ends meet on an average middle class salary.

Chinese media is also downplaying the idea of an affluent Chinese middle class. In an op-ed titled “Growing size of booming Chinese middle class maybe not that big”, China Daily pour cold water on the idea by explaining the dissatisfaction of the Chinese public. The paper says a majority of Chinese aren’t able to accept themselves as middle class because they don’t view themselves as successful: “If they cannot live in a comfortable and confident way, Chinese people usually will not regard themselves as a member of the middle class.”

Instead, Chinese are “suspicious” at becoming middle class “even though many of them may actually possess more wealth than the minimum amount that the Swiss bank deemed necessary to define the middle class.”

Meanwhile, in an op-ed titled “Growing wealth not full picture of multi-faceted country”, the Global Times brought up China’s huge wealth disparity, citing some 70 million people that still need to be lifted out of poverty as well as an abnormally high Gini coefficient. The paper urged readers to take an “all-around perspective” on China instead of just concentrating on growing wealth.

This line of thinking isn’t new. In 2010, a China.org op-ed called a report by the Asian Development Bank “questionable” when it said China has a middle class that numbered 800 million people, a full 60 percent of the population.  “The report is just another example of overseas observers consistently over-estimating China’s purchasing power”, went the op-ed, saying, “the world has believed China is better off than it really is.”

China Daily admits in its op-ed that there are some things money can’t solve, writing “In a sense, their counter intuitive suspicion about their rising status in the world represents a call for changes that the middle class demand.” The need to look beyond wealth is further echoed in the China.org op-ed, which wrote, “To establish a genuine middle class we need to complete the urbanization process and build a civil society.”

If you are to ask China’s middle class what makes them happy, their answer is clear: money.

A 2013 global survey by Ipso found the number of Chinese respondents that equated happiness with their material possessions is double the global average, coming in at 71 percent. Two out of three Chinese said they felt “under a lot of pressure to be successful and make money”, more than in any other country.

In that case, what is to become of a country whose main purpose for years on end was to create wealth, and people who only dream of becoming wealthy? It seems even with all the money they have accumulated, China’s middle class is unable to attain the happiness they seek because they are a social construct for the purpose of attaining, and not for existing.

Dean of Social Science School of Nanjing University Zhou Xiaohong said:

People keep raising their expectations and once the reality does not live up to their anticipations, they feel frustrated. That’s why most of the “middle class” are not happy and do not agree with the term.

After rising out of poverty, there seems to be nowhere else for middle class to elevate themselves. As Zhou continued, “Chinese society does not provide adequate opportunities for people to realize their dreams.”

And so, while China becoming the world’s largest middle class is good news, it only goes to emphasize that the pursuit of happiness in China has only just begun.

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