He doesn't think much of China's infrastructure build out (based mainly on the possibility that it is inefficient or overheating). But perhaps overseas student

He doesn't think much of China's infrastructure build out (based mainly on the possibility that it is inefficient or overheating). But perhaps overseas student numbers are more revealing - presumably education is valuable even if infrastructure isn't. I had a dig around for some statistics, and found the Australian government page on this: http://aei.gov.au/AEI/MIP/Statistics/StudentEnrolmentAndVisaStatistics/Default.htm#data http://aei.gov.au/AEI/MIP/Statistics/StudentEnrolmentAndVisa... Statistics for China: 2005 - 84,476 2006 - 93,533 2007 - 110,846 2008 - 131,210 2009 - 154,777 That's 17% growth from 2008 to 2009. (Incidentally US figures have gone down.) Not a perfect proxy for economic growth, but then what is? There may be a bubble here and there, but on the face of it China seems to have a lot of advantages. As for not having a social safety net, it appears they've thought about the one: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jGQDE0Z2LbFGRirzDQTs81WGjXlAD9EAVR800 http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jGQDE0Z2Lb... I don't know if China's stimulus is as distorting as the article suggests, but it seems to me that now is as good a time as you're going to get to spend your dollars overseas if you've got some spare. I wouldn't bet on the stories about new investments in solar power, African minerals, and high speed train networks drying up just yet.