new chinese luxury island

The most prominent development is a series of four luxury apartment towers and a "seven-star" hotel on Phoenix Island, a spit of sand off the coast that was created by the provincial government as a cruise ship dock. Photo: Shiho Fukada

In the last two months, Hainan, an island the size of Belgium in the South China Sea, has become a potent symbol of China’s economic vitality — or, perhaps, its excesses. Even in a country where new wealth spawns new tales of luxury living every day, Hainan is viewed with a mix of awe, envy and disgust. ...

“People are coming with entire bags full of cash,” said Raymond Hau, general manager of the Sun Valley Golf Resort, which is building the 220 luxury villas. “I’ve seen this myself. A man had a bag and unzipped it. Boom. ‘Here’s the deposit,’ he said. ‘I want two apartments.’” ...

Now, in Sanya, even those benefiting from the current boom say property and hotel prices have reached absurd levels. “There’s no real economy,” said Lin Mingkun, the manager of the yacht club and a condo owner. “It’s a bubble economy.”

full article: On China’s Hainan Island, the Boom Is Deafening. NYtimes, 30.03.2010