Society

In 2008, when Harrah's Entertainment Inc. pulled out of a multibillion-dollar casino resort in Nassau, a Bahamas development company scrambled to find investors and financing to rescue it. Three years later, the Chinese rolled the dice.

On Monday, Baha Mar Resorts Ltd. is set to break ground on the $3.4 billion hotel, casino and resort project. Its unlikely partners: China State Construction Engineering Corp., the country's largest construction company by revenue, and the Export-Import Bank of China, a state-owned bank with the mission to help Chinese companies expand overseas.

"They were extremely aggressive about wanting to be in the project," said Don Robinson, president of Baha Mar. "It will help China State Construction prove to the world that they can build a very complex project outside China."

The Bahamas project, the largest property to be built and partly owned by a Chinese company outside of China, underscores the push into overseas markets by Chinese firms. Beijing has been encouraging Chinese companies to go abroad to help diversify the country's $2.85 trillion foreign-exchange reserves and reduce its reliance on the U.S. dollar.

Chinese banks, providing hard-to-find financing, are helping to make such big bets abroad, especially on cheap real estate and infrastructure projects amid a recovering economy.

Apple Inc. dispatched its chief operating officer to the Chinese factory complex of its main manufacturing partner last year to assess and advise the company after a rash of highly publicized suicides raised concerns about worker conditions at companies affiliated with the consumer-electronics giant.

In its annual survey of suppliers, Apple said Tim Cook visited the Shenzhen facility of Foxconn—the trade name for Taiwan-headquarted Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronics—last June after nearly a dozen workers killed themselves, some by jumping from buildings. The suicides came as Apple launched its iPad tablet computer and raced to meet demand for the device.

The Cupertino, Calif., company said Mr. Cook and his team made recommendations, including better training of counselors, which were adopted by Foxconn, according to the report made public Monday. Mr. Cook and his team interviewed more than 1,000 workers and evaluated Foxconn's reaction to the events, which included establishing a 24-hour care center.

Japanese porn star Maria Ozawa / Miyabi took her first step to enter Chinese market by a strip show in Kunming, on 6th Feb. 2011.

AV or Adult Video is not allow to sell in China mainland, but Chinese Netizens still can find Japanese AV online or by BT. So Japanese porn star is popular among Chinese Male Netizens.

Monday marked the end of an era for Japan. The curtain officially fell on its place as the world’s second largest economy, losing that rank to China. But as Asia watchers digest the shift in power and influence, Chinese students in Japan say China’s rise up the GDP ladder is neither a triumphant moment for China nor a woeful one for Japan.

“Even though (Japan) is No. 3 and was overtaken by China, I still think GDP is not a goal. GDP is just a tool for economic development,” said Xie Zhi Hai, a 28-year-old doctoral student at Waseda University in Tokyo. “The real measure is whether people enjoy a comfortable life, and in Japan I can feel that.”

Mr. Xie, who is earning a doctorate from Beijing University and Waseda University, points out that China’s per capita gross domestic product is still just one-tenth of Japan’s.