No sector exposes China’s pragmatism as thoroughly as the country’s property market, as evidenced by the reaction to the government’s recent measures to cool the housing market.
In the week after China announced a 20% capital gains tax on the sale of second properties, divorce rates sky-rocketed as couples particularly those living in tier-one cities sought to dodge the property tax through sham separations.
Registry officers who were used to only a few cases a day were soon seeing as many as 50 couples daily, according to local media. The couples seeking to dissolve their marriages reportedly looked very happy and intimate and some admitted publicly that...