China Today (Economy and Religion‪)‬

The Chinese have a proverb, "If you visit for a week you can write a book; stay a lifetime and you won't be able to finish a sentence." It is a way of stating that China defies any attempt at a simple description. The more a person learns about China, the more complicated the subject becomes. China is too vast, too diverse, its population too large, its terrain too varied, and its history too rich for a single statement to capture every nuance of this most populous nation on earth. Moreover, Chinese society is changing rapidly with its booming economy, a result of the seemingly contradictory combination of a socialist government with a market economy. Its rapidly expanding economy--fourth largest in the world and climbing--is the envy of many capitalist countries. The Chinese Gross Domestic Product grew 9.5 percent in 2004 while the U.S. GDP grew 1.1 percent.