Why Haidian, China’s Richest District, Has No Luxury Stores

Picture how the US makes its elite. Phillips Exeter to Harvard; the admissions essay; the unpaid internship, the strategically chosen volunteer trip, the “passion project,” activities pursued for how they read on an application. Oxbridge and PPE and the slow escalator into the British Establishment have their own version. A whole literature exists to argue about it, The Price of Admission, The Tyranny of Merit. Now try to picture the Chinese equivalent. For most people familiar with China, there is one impression, “the gaokao is hard,” and then static.The blank is odd, because the place where China manufactures its elite is not hidden. Haidian (海淀, “where the waters gather”), the district in the northwest of Beijing, may be the most legible elite-factory on earth.It is packed with universities, research institutes, and technology companies, the densest concentration of higher learning in China, and it is the richest district in Beijing. Yet it has almost no luxury stores.The absence…