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Diamonds are portrayed as the link between romance and security. "It's more than selling a product," Cheung says. "It's creating a culture." The company has been so successful in its creation that now, in Shanghai, 70 percent of all brides are given a diamond wedding ring. In Beijing, it is 80 percent (up from 45 percent just over five years ago). Japan, despite being a much wealthier society, has a "diamond acquisition rate" of only 50 percent. Every year, De Beers cosponsors a "Rose Wedding Ceremony" with the Shanghai municipal government, in which up to 100 couples exchange vowsand diamond ringsin an event broadcast on television. Photographs from last year's ceremony show brides and grooms exchanging vows next to a 12foothigh model of a diamond ring. On Nanjing Road, the famed shopping street that snakes through the heart of Shanghai, glittering storefronts line both sides. Prada. Louis Vuitton. Hermes. Since 2002, when government regulations were eased to allow foreign brands to open up their own retail stores rather than have to go through a Chinese partner, highend stores have been coming in fast and furious.
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