YANTAI, China - They shop in malls and high-end supermarkets, buy condos by the seaside, attend wine tastings, vacation abroad, and push their kids to apply to Harvard. But they aren't American suburbanites; they are China's huge and growing urban middle class, which Beijing hopes will eventually consume enough to lower the country's dependence on exports.

If you trust Chinese government figures, the middle class already tops 400 million, larger than the entire U.S. population. Even if you cut that figure in half, it outstrips the U.S. middle class of roughly 120 million. Moreover, despite far lower earnings than their Western counterparts, lower costs in China give them living standards approximating southern Europe.

And unlike their frugal parents and grandparents, who lived through China's poverty years and Cultural Revolution and are avid savers, younger Chinese are more eager to spend.

On a trip to Beijing, to Chengdu in western China, and to Yantai and Qingdao on the east coast, I saw a booming consumption culture that outstripped anything I'd seen in previous visits.

And how does the middle class spend its vacations? In Yantai, a lovely port city 350 miles from Beijing, newish seaside hotels and restaurants line the oceanfront. Row after row of luxury apartment towers overlook white sandy beaches and the Yellow Sea across from South Korea; they are snapped up by well-heeled urban Chinese seeking to escape awful urban pollution - and find cheaper real estate.

On the more upscale end, I visited Yantai's Changyu winery, dating back to 1892,N but now prospering from the new Chinese middle class' widening tastes. The Changyu Noble Dragon cabernet went down well in a lavish tasting room; reviews say that Chinese wine quality is seriously improving and exports to Europe are growing.