Here’s a piece from Xinhua on China’s luxury market. As we all know by now, China is the world’s second largest luxury market and it will soon become the first, displacing Japan. Of course, what “luxury” includes is subject to debate.

One distinction made in approaches to consumption is between super-wealthy and new rich, who spend mostly on gifts for business partners and wives or mistresses, and brand-savvy ‘little emperors’ – the generation of only-children born after 1980 – who actually care about the styles they are purchasing. The future does not bode well for LV, since more sophisticated consumers will choose more understated and distinctive products.

The article ends with a quote by Prof. Li. Prof. Li Fei, director of the Department of Marketing at Tsinghua University: “Hopefully, in years to come, the fashion in Paris and Milan will be to wear Chinese silk embroidery, put ancient Chinese furniture at home and sip Chinese Moutai.” The silk and furniture have already made it. Baijiu has an uncertain future – even domestically, I believe. For reasons of status and taste, even China’s young wealthy might move away from premium baijius. I see few people under thirty happily drinking or even gifting Maotai or Wuliangye.