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Automobiles in China refers to an ongoing trend of automobile usage and consumption that encompasses such issues as highway construction, city planning, fossil fuel usage, and the argument between public and private transportation.

Movement Toward Free Trade
In the late 1970’s, spurred on by a desire for greater economic prosperity, the Chinese government began liberalizing its economy, allowing not only private sector development but also encouraging the integration of Foreign Direct Investment. As a result of these changes, the Chinese economy moved from a largely agriculture based system to an industrial one. This facilitated the movement of people from rural to urban areas, creating growth and prosperity and improving overall quality of life. Wei, Shang-Jin: "The Globalization of the Chinese Economy", page 3. Edward Elgar, 2002

By welcoming trade, China underwent significant liberalization in many areas, the greatest of which in industry, which would see remarkable changes in both structure and growth. This would facilitate gross amounts of foreign direct investment, causing the influence of foreign ventures to rapidly gain steam. By 1997, 18 million Chinese workers would be employed by foreign investors alone, 18 percent of the non-agricultural workforce.3 While there are a myriad different economic policies that have contributed to China’s boom in the past two decades, none can be said to be more influential than the adoption of free trade within the country. By moving towards capitalism, China has substantially increased the quality of life for its people throughout the 1980’s and 90’s. In doing so, they have built the foundation for the largest group of automobile consumers, the middle class.

The Middle Class
The percent of the total population that is middle class has risen one percent a year in China since 1999, to a total of nineteen percent in 2003. By 2020, the expected percent of middle class households will total forty percent of the total population.4 These middle class households are mainly situated in large urban coastal areas in the cities of Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong. Though only one-seventh of the total land mass of China, the east coast urban centers contribute four-fifths of its economy.5 With a rise in the middle and upper classes comes a new diet for consumerism due to the availability of surplus funds in households: as a result, there is a greater demand for such goods as consumer electronics, telecommunications, and automobiles. As seen in America, where the automobile movement started in urban centers, the majority of the wealth is situated, and move outward, spreading development as it goes. With money to spend on cars, the Chinese middle class will prove less reliant on public transportation as a more personal, social status symbol means of transport becomes feasible and available.

Americanization vs. Modernization: The Suburbs
As more cars enter the road in China and mobility becomes tangible, the desire to move out of urban centers into a semi-rural environment conducive to driving will surface. The reality of Chinese suburbs is here, yet now are reserved only for the privileged few: a few miles outside of Beijing gated communities stand as testaments to American influence on Chinese suburbia. New beltways around Beijing are constantly being built to aide commuters. The inaccessibility of roads in China up until this point have discouraged the use of automobiles, but the support of new highway construction will bring development out of the cities and into the countryside. City planning will be developers' main concern in deciding between an American model and a European one: factors such as public transportation infrastructure and highway construction will largely influence what modernization China adopts.