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"China Unicom (NYSE: CHU) could be one of the best ways to play China's astounding economic growth," says Brandon Clay in Invest with an Edge. Here's the growth advisor's review.

"With the world's largest population as its market, the mobile phone industry in China is set to soar. This makes China Unicom a compelling play. The firm has 21% market share in China.

"China Unicom's vice president recently said the company is targeting subscriber growth of 20 million to 30 million within a year. To put that into context, Verizon Wireless, the largest mobile phone carrier in the U.S., had 72.1 million subscribers at the end of last year.

Why did China raise its gasoline and diesel prices? Beijing has a pricing policy that uses a 22-day moving average of crude oil. With the price of crude oil trading at around $71 per barrel, China felt it necessary to raise the price of gasoline and diesel fuel 9% and 10%, respectively. This will raise the price of a gallon of gasoline to $3.00 per gallon, compared with the U.S. price of $2.66 a week ago, according to Reuters news service.

With economies around the world gaining ground this quarter, it follows that demand for crude oil is also increasing. So far we've seen a doubling of oil prices since last February. The main concern is, given the pace of recovery, is there a point where demand for crude oil and gasoline will taper off. If so, we may be looking at an intermediate top in oil prices. However, if world economies continue to improve, crude oil could move to $75 to $80 per barrel.

The China miracle is back on track, and with it comes speculation for resource demand as a result of huge economic growth. Within the oil sector, the coal group has seen big gains given its use in power generation. In China, that is particularly true, with the country seeing new power plants open on a regular basis.

Yanzhou Coal Mining (NYSE: YZC) appears to be in the sweet spot. Investors seem to agree and have pushed YZC up almost 70% in 2009. China is an appealing play, but by no means certain.

Forging a cross-border buyout deal is always difficult. But, it is even more complicated if the seller needs to get the deal done fairly quickly.

No doubt, this is the case with GM, which is in the process of unloading its Hummer unit. The interested buyer is Sichuan Tengzhong, which is based in China. The price tag on the deal: $500 million.

However, this week we got a bombshell; that is, the BBC reported that the Chinese government wanted to kill the deal.

Based in China, GOME Electrical Appliances is a top electronics retailer. However, the firm has been under a cloud lately. After all, GOME's founder, Huang Guangyu, is under investigation for alleged financial fraud.

But, such things aren't a deterrent for Bain Capital. As expected, this private equity operator announced a deal to buy about $233 million in convertible bonds in GOME. What's more, the retailer plans to sell $214 million in shares, with a discount of 40%.

"The Chinese Dragon strikes again," says small cap expert Jim Oberweis, Jr., adding, "So far in 2009, the MSCI China Index is up 30% and our Oberweis China Opportunities Fund (OBCHX) has gained 62%."

In his The Oberweis Report, he says, "China will be a great place to invest over the medium-to-long term, even if unpredictable in the short term."

Here, the advisor and money manager reveals four stocks that he considers "some of the most interesting Chinese ADRs to buy now: E-House (NYSE: EJ), Asia Info Holdings (NASDAQ: ASIA), New Oriental Education (NYSE: EDU), and Longtop Financial (NYSE: LFT).

The BRIC nations -- Brazil, Russia, India, China -- basically the powerhouses of the developing world, recently met to discuss, among other things, the possibility of forming an effort to move away from the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

Among options for consideration: a) a shift to another hard currency, b) a shift to a basket of currencies, and c) the possibility of the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights unit of account serving as the new reserve currency.

Back in 2007 -- at the height of the private equity bubble -- the Chinese sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp. (CIC), agreed to invest $3 billion in Blackstone (NYSE: BX). Of course, it was a disaster. In all, the investment lost roughly two-thirds of its value.

Despite all this, it looks like CIC hasn't given up on Blackstone. In fact, according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal, CIC is prepared to invest $500 million into a Blackstone hedge fund vehicle.

There is a disturbing trend that is taking shape across the international financial markets. It involves primarily Russia, Brazil and China. Just what are these countries up to? They may be tipping the balance of international finance into uncharted waters.

Specifically, they are buying smaller quantities of U.S. treasuries and using their excess reserves to buy other non-dollar denominated assets. For example, in April total net purchases of long-term equities, notes and bonds rose a net $11.2 billion compared with a gain of $55.4 billion in March. International holdings increased $41.9 billion in April, compared with $55.3 billion in March.

In 2005, several Chinese entrepreneurs started a milk production company, Modern Dairy. The company realized there was a huge opportunity in China for milk as right now the country is third in the world in terms of production.

Besides, in light of some of the contamination problems in the industry,especially last year's melamine scandal, there was a need for a better approach.

Well, Modern Dairy has caught the attention of the mighty private equity firm KKR. This week, the firm invested $150 million in the venture, according to Bloomberg.

• At 8:30 AM, May housing starts and building permits are due out, both expected to be higher than April's rates
• At the same time, inflation at the wholesale level, or PPI is expected to have risen 0.6% in May, according to Briefing.com, compared to an increase of 0.3% in April. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile food and energy prices, is expected to edge up 0.1%, same as in April. Inflation has been in focus lately as some fear it could spike.
• Finally, at 9:15 AM, two manufacturing indicators are due out: May industrial production and capacity utilization.

This post is part of a featured report on stocks in the Chinese online gaming sector.

"China's online gaming market is slated to surge," says Andy Obermueller, an analyst with Street Authority's newly-launched advisory service, Government-Driven Investing.

"In China, internet users understand and embrace the 'come, stay, pay' model; that's where a site allows users to access a few things for free, but they have to pony up for the good stuff.

"This works particularly well with games. One of the leaders in this space is Shanda Interactive Entertainment (NASDAQ: SNDA). Gamers at its site use prepaid cards -- available at more than 320,000 vendors -- to add money to player accounts that can be used to access all of the features of its games.