China Minting Millionaires in Global Wealth Surge.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-11/china-minting-millionaires-in-global-wealth-surge#r=hpt-fs

Where do the world’s rich live? As has long been true, the U.S. has more millionaires (in U.S. dollars) than any other country, with 7.1 million. But China last year came in second with 2.4 million millionaire households, beating Japan with half as many. The number of millionaire families around the world reached 16.3 million last year, up from 13.7 million the year before.

All told, the total value of global private wealth grew far faster than global economic output, up 14.6 percent, to $152 trillion, compared with an 8.6 percent increase in 2012. Much of the new money originated in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan), up by 30.5 percent, to $37 trillion. That put Asia in the No. 3 spot for riches, behind North America and Europe, according to the 14th annual survey on private wealth by Boston Consulting Group.

Even as China mints new millionaires, the gap between rich and poor keeps growing and has now become one of the world’s highest. China’s Gini coefficient—a measure of inequality—has increased from 0.3 in 1980 to 0.55 in 2010 (a zero would represent perfect equality, and a score of one would mean all income is concentrated in the hands of a single individual), according to a survey, released in April, by the University of Michigan and a group of Chinese universities. A score over 0.4 can cause socially instability, the United Nations has warned.