Since 1978, when Deng Xiaoping set China upon the road to a ?socialist market economy?, the number of poor Chinese has reduced from 250 million to 29 million, says the government. Under Chairman Mao, ?everyone was poor?, people tell you. These are not ?capitalist roaders?, but former peasants who have seen their small fishing villages converted into spanking new cities. Today, they run small businesses or do ?Class IV? jobs in foreign companies. While they had to make do earlier with rationed food and clothes, today they wheel overflowing trolleys in supermarkets and dine at McDonald?s side by side with vice-presidents of foreign companies.

In China?s coastal cities, which were the first to ?open up?, there seems to be no evidence of the gap between the richest and the poorest. There are no obvious ?slum-and-skyscraper? contrasts. Indeed, no slums can be seen here; sometimes, you see hovels as you zoom down expressways and you wonder if those belong to the farmers whose land you are driving on. Beggars do gape into fancy restaurants, and some are horribly handicapped, but rarely can you see on the same street women sparkling with gold and people scrounging for left-overs.

Chinese women wear very little gold, perhaps for fear of being robbed. And even rag-pickers here don?t soil their hands: they use long sticks to separate the trash.

Missing the bus

For Indians, the most striking display of private affluence on the Mainland are the swanky cars. In the smaller coastal cities, most taxis are air-conditioned Volkswagens; in the larger metros, taxis can be Toyotas too.Audis, Mercedes and BMWs are not a rare sight, and you could chance upon a six-door limousine in a reasonably well-off housing complex. But it is not as though the poor can?t even afford a bus ride. The maximum bus fare within city limits is three yuan (this includes AC buses). Many self-employed Chinese own cycles.

The real income gap is perhaps best illustrated by the following example: a migrant labourer, wanting to celebrate Chinese New Year last February with his family, had to walk all the way to his hometown. Not having received his wages for three months, he couldn?t afford bus fare. During New Year and national holidays, the government allows bus and train operators to make a killing by hiking fares by about 20 per cent.

It took this particular labourer six weeks to walk home.

Motor index

There are 120 million migrant labourers in China, who migrate from the countryside to the cities. Most have studied upto the ninth standard, and earn between 500 and 800 yuan a month. On the other end of the spectrum, a Chinese has just booked a ticket to the first sub-orbital space flight. The cost: 98,000 US dollars.

Ten per cent of Shenzhen?s population lives in flats worth 10,000 yuan per square metre. 10,000 BMWs were sold in China this year. The personal fortune of China?s richest IT businessman, a 31-year-old gaming entrepreneur, has been valued at $ 1.05 billion. Even under Mao, a handful of communist leaders lived lives the vast majority couldn?t dream of. In fact, since the Eighties, it appears that anyone with guts and a sound business sense can become a millionaire.

The key difference is that under Mao, even the poorest of the poor had access to free medical care and a basic education. Today, their children are condemned to beg for gangs while they themselves risk their lives in unsafe mines ( almost 4,500 miners have died this year), and their limbs insweatshops, with no guarantee of medical care. Pay first is the rule in government hospitals, even for emergency patients. X-rays can cost 150 yuan,and are done after a long wait. But pay a VIP fee of 50 yuan, and you can bypass all queues.