Introduction

With China's entry into the WTO, international firms are becoming excited about the lifting of the barriers to potentially the largest consumer market in the world. Since China's current economic reform launched in 1978, foreign firms have shown tremendous enthusiasm about the emerging China market. Thousands of foreign investors have entered the market in the last two decades. In the meantime, a new Cultural Revolution has taken place in China (Pollay et al 1990). Together with foreign investors, western goods, as well as marketing concepts and techniques, are flooding in. Consumers in China are quickly adopting new values and western ideas (Tai and Tam 1997, Wei and Pan 1999) because of their increased exposure to global media and western lifestyles (Batra, 1997). Consequently, a new wave of consumerism is sweeping the mainland (Tong 1998).

For historical reasons, western China has been developing very slowly and the reason is thought to be the prevalent business philosophy (Sims and Schiff 2000). People in western China are generally more traditional and conservative than those in the east and south. However, little is currently known about whether there are significant differences between eastern , western, northern and southern regions of China in terms of the development of consumerism. By providing a better understanding of the different development stages of consumerism across China, this chapter aims to provide some valuable insights for MNCs designing their marketing strategies for the different Chinese regional markets.

We will specifically look at three extremely important and widespread phenomena resulting from growing consumerism in today's China: health consciousness, environmental consciousness and business ethics consciousness. Along with ongoing economic development, most Chinese people have experienced a significant improvement in living standards and as a result are paying more and more attention to their own health. Health consciousness is seen as one of the 'megatrends' to impact on the China market (Tong 1998) and Chinese women have been found to be more health conscious than their counterparts in Hong Kong and Taiwan (Tai and Tam 1997). The 'Open Door' policy has also brought about Chinese people's growing awareness of the importance of environmental protection. They have demonstrated much stronger environmental concern than their American counterparts (Chan 2000). Chinese female consumers were found to be more environmentally conscious than those in Hong Kong (Tai and Tam 1997). At the same time, consumerism has both bridged and exposed gaps in trust among entrepreneurs, government bureaucrats, and consumers (Veeck 2000). Chinese consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of business ethics. A survey of business people in eastern China revealed that business ethics has become a new and popular topic and business leaders have begun to realize its importance (Wu, 1999). These three issues are important to an understanding of China's growing consumerism.