60 Minutes (1968) s45e19 Episode Script
The Life and Death of Clay Hunt | China's Real Estate Mogul | China's Real Estate Bubble
One of the leading causes of death for American military forces right now is suicide.
In 2012, 349 active members of the Armed Forces took their own lives, more than who died in combat.
When you add the suicides among veterans, the numbers are staggering.
The VA estimates that as many as 22 veterans a day die by their own hands.
Twenty-two each day.
This is the story of one: Clay Hunt from Houston, Texas, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After four years of a downward spiral, he took his own life in 2011.
You'll see him in videos during some of his best times and hear him talk about some of his worst.
Hunt loved being a Marine and serving his country and though he had been out of the Corps for two years when he died, Clay Hunt was a casualty of war.
This is Clay Hunt about a year before he killed himself.
At 27, he thought he could make the world a better place.
[Question: Tell me who you are? Clay Hunt: My name is Clay Hunt.
I'm here because I'm needed here.
.]
When a massive earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, Hunt -- a Marine combat veteran -- went back into action as a humanitarian.
[Clay Hunt: I was there to do a job, to help people and that was such a great feeling, being able to actually get to work and help people and do good things and to not have to worry about getting shot at.
What Clay Hunt didn't say in this video is that by helping others, he was hoping to heal himself from the traumas of war.
Hunt earned a Purple Heart when he was wounded in Iraq.
A year later he deployed to Afghanistan.
On both tours, he fought alongside Jake Wood.
Jake Wood: We became as close as friends can get.
Byron Pitts: Like brothers? Jake Wood: Absolutely.
[Question: How do you know Jake? Clay Hunt: He was best man at my wedding, he's my best friend for the last few years, he's the guy I asked to go get me a beer about at me, but he's my brother, I'd die for him.
.]
Byron Pitts: He had so much going on for him.
So, how could it happen to someone like Clay Hunt? Jake Wood: I don't know.
I don't know.
Clay had the world at his fingertips.
Clay could've done anything he wanted.
He was smart.
He was good-looking, charismatic.
The ladies loved him.
He was the all-American kid.
In early 2007, Clay Hunt and Jake Wood deployed to Iraq, outside Fallujah.
Hunt later said, "that's when it all started - my life was changed forever.
" Only a month into their tour, Hunt's bunkmate, Blake Howey was killed by an IED.
Three weeks later, another friend, Nathan Windsor, was shot in an ambush.
Hunt was driving the platoon's Humvee a few yards away, under orders to stay put.
Jake Wood: Clay had to witness everything through a bulletproof windshield.
He had to sit back and watch.
And that was his job, and he did it.
But it was, I think for him, a very-- it was a feeling of helplessness.
Susan Selke: He would tell me.
He said, "Mom, that plays in my mind like a video over and over and it won't stop.
" Susan Selke and Stacy Hunt are Clay's parents.
From 6,000 miles away, they could sense the guilt and grief wash over him.
Susan Selke: He knew in his head there was nothing else that he could have done and he knew no one could have done anything more.
But in his heart, it just-- it just tore him apart.
Just tore him apart.
Stacy Hunt: It definitely changed him and in a way that we will never know how deeply it changed him.
Three days after Windsor's death, Hunt's platoon held a memorial service before heading out on patrol.
Hours later, a sniper shot Hunt through the wrist, sending him back to his base in California.
But being separated from his unit did more damage than the bullet and added to his helplessness.
Jake Wood: Just like when he was in that Humvee during Nathan's ambush, and he couldn't do anything, now he's at home and that's-- that's maddening.
Byron Pitts: Maddening because? Jake Wood: You'd like to think that you have some control over the safety and wellbeing of your brothers.
If you get sent home, you have no control.
Before long, Clay Hunt was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder - PTSD.
Despite being placed on medication, he struggled with depression, panic attacks, and sleeplessness.
Jake Wood: It marked him.
And I think he saw it as marking him as weak.
Not being able to handle it.
Byron Pitts: Did guys treat him differently once they knew? Jake Wood: No.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
He-- but he felt like they did.
Byron Pitts: I mean, there's no shame in that, right? Jake Wood: Depends on who you ask and when.
You know, ask a Marine rifleman if there's shame in having PTSD just coming back from a chest-thumping deployment to Iraq and he'll tell you, "You shouldn't have PTSD that's what we do.
" Despite his injury and PTSD, Hunt followed Jake Wood into an elite sniper unit and deployed to Afghanistan.
And that's when he started having doubts about the war.
Jake Wood: The rest of us refused to look at the larger picture of the war that we were fighting in Afghanistan.
And Clay refused to allow himself not to look at it.
He saw our friends continuing to die and get maimed.
And, you know, we would go out on these missions, and we'd get in firefights where we'd kill people.
And he had to justify that.
And when those doubts start to creep in your mind, that's when you-- that's when you start to lose your mind.
And that's what started to happen with Clay.
Hunt and Wood lost two more friends in Afghanistan.
When he left the Marine Corps in 2009, Hunt was disillusioned by war and disappointed by what he found at home.
Stacy Hunt: He was saddened by the fact that Americans didn't seem to be impacted by what was going on in the world.
That we lived kind of in a bubble.
Susan Selke: He said, "You know, the Marines are at war and America's at the mall.
" And it was just the realization of the disconnect.
Jake Wood also felt that disconnect.
He was fresh out of the Marine Corps when that earthquake struck Haiti in 2010.
Wood decided -- spur of the moment -- to lead a handful of veterans -- including Hunt -- on a relief mission.
A month later, they responded to another quake in Chile.
[Clay Hunt: We found a need and we're bridging the gap.
.]
That was the beginning of Team Rubicon, an organization that helps veterans get back into civilian life by using their military skills in disaster relief.
Byron Pitts: What did Team Rubicon, what did the experience in Haiti give Clay? Jake Wood: I think Clay found that sense of purpose, that identity that he wanted in the Marine Corps.
He was helping put people's lives back together.
At the same time, Clay Hunt was struggling to put his life on track.
His year old marriage was failing, divorce followed.
He changed medications, looking for something that relieved his depression and anxiety without debilitating side effects.
Still, Hunt wanted to help others.
When he was at Loyola Marymount University, he agreed to talk about his problems publicly in this MTV college network video about depression.
[Clay Hunt: So I'm almost 10 years older than most of my classmates and so that makes it a little hard to relate to a lot of people just cause I have a whole lot of different life experiences than most 40 year olds.
You know, I've done, seen things in my life that, for one, most people should never have to see.
.]
At the West Los Angeles VA, Hunt sought counseling off and on.
But life became more difficult as VA delays in processing his benefits put Hunt under financial stress along with his depression.
Susan Selke: He's racking up credit card debt to try to cover things until that starts coming in.
It's a very-- Byron Pitts: That must have frustrated him.
Stacy Hunt and Susan Selke: It was very frustrating.
Hunt found an outlet for his frustration riding a bicycle and through the VA he met pro-cyclist John Wordin.
When Hunt's depression hit a new low in the fall of 2010, he dropped out of college.
That's when Wordin took Hunt in to live with him and his family.
John Wordin: He was the darkest of the dark.
You could look in his eyes and you could see that hopelessness.
Byron Pitts: Could he ever articulate what it was exactly? John Wordin: He would always say, "I-- you know what, John? I don't feel like being here anymore.
" Byron Pitts: Meaning? John Wordin: He should've been killed in Iraq with his buddies.
[John Wordin: All you guys in the back, you gotta come forward!.]
Wordin has worked with people like Clay Hunt since 2007 when he started an organization called Ride 2 Recovery.
[Bicyclist: Here we go baby!.]
He organizes bike rides around the country for active duty military and veterans with psychological and physical wounds.
The rides offer camaraderie and a chance to relate to others damaged by war.
And the strenuous activity leads to something most are missing: sleep.
Last October, 200 rode from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Byron Pitts: What happens on those rides? John Wordin: It's magic.
Something happens, they get so physically tired that they let their guard down.
And all of a sudden it comes gushing out.
And it's all different.
Byron Pitts: They're not alone.
John Wordin: Not only are they not alone, but they find that they have a way to overcome it.
Byron Pitts: What was Clay like on the rides? John Wordin: He was great.
I mean, he really enjoyed riding.
That's what makes it so frustrating with how the end came.
Because, like, he was always looking forward to the next ride.
And then all of a suddenno.
Hunt told John Wordin he'd be on the Ride moved back to Houston, had a new job, a new truck, a new girlfriend, but was still haunted by what he had seen and done in war.
On March and shot himself through the head.
He was Stacy Hunt: You never dream that a child will commit suicide.
You never-- you just can't imagine things getting that bad, you know? Susan Selke: If you don't have depression and anxiety under control, it's-- it is like a cancer.
It will just-- it'll take you down.
And with his suicide, the pain and survivor's guilt that plagued Clay Hunt spread to those who knew and loved him.
Byron Pitts: Who do you blame? Do you blame anybody? Stacy Hunt: I blame myself, you know, for not, you know, seeing the deadly mixture of his depression and his PTSD and for not reacting strongly enough.
Jake Wood: I can't pretend to know what it was that was particular about Clay that made him take his own life.
Byron Pitts: How often do you ask yourself that question? Jake Wood: Every day.
You know, it'll come to you at any hour and you wonder.
What was it? What made Clay's experience and return home different from mine? What made it, you know, different from any other-- any of the other Marines we served with? And if I had known that, what could I have done differently? Byron Pitts: It sounds like you have your own measure of survivor's guilt? Jake Wood: Of course.
Do I blame myself occasionally for Clay's death? Absolutely.
Byron Pitts: Why? Jake Wood: I was Clay's partner in sniper school, and if there's one thing that you learn, is that you never under any circumstance, let your partner down.
Byron Pitts: But Clay didn't kill himself in sniper school.
He didn't kill himself in Afghanistan or Iraq.
He killed himself in his apartment, in Houston, Texas.
Jake Wood: That brotherhood doesn't stop.
Doesn't end.
Doesn't end when we take off the uniform, doesn't end when we come home.
Doesn't end 60 years from now.
I knew Clay was struggling.
I knew he would-- had been suicidal.
And I-- you know, I didn't-- there was more I could've done.
And I owed it to him to do it.
And I didn't.
Byron Pitts: You ever get angry with him about it? Jake Wood: Yeah, I cuss him out all the time.
I mean the fact that I had to come in here and do a 60 Minutes interview, and revisit all these things, I cursed him on the drive over her.
I'll curse him on the drive home.
Byron Pitts: You blame him some? Jake Wood: Unfortunately, yes.
I do.
You know, I'm having a wedding in six months, and there's a groomsmen's spot that's not going to be filled.
You know, it's like-- of course I'm angry.
Byron Pitts: I'm struck by how everyone who was close to Clay-- each of you blame yourselves.
John Wordin: You feel like you let him down.
You know, he counted on me as a guy that he knew he could count on.
He could call me anytime, anywhere.
He knew he was always welcome.
And it's not enough.
And you struggle with that.
Byron Pitts: How many Clays have you met? John Wordin: He's the only one that ever went the final step.
But guys that are like that, hundreds.
Over the five years I've been doing that-- hundreds.
[Clay Hunt: We're veterans.
We fought for our country and we've done what I think are great things.
Yeah, they can be horrible things, but that's war and that's the way war's always been, but we're doing good things for our country and I think we deserve a lot better coming home as veterans.
.]
No one symbolizes China's rapid 30-year rise -- from the backwaters of communism to the second largest economy in the world -- better than real estate developer Zhang Xin.
What's interesting about her is that while we think of China as being uncreative, repressive and as far as you can get from the American dream, she breaks every one of those stereotypes.
She's a mogul who got her start not in China, but on Wall Street.
But she missed the Great Wall, so she went back home, and made it big! The mogul, Zhang Xin, is the fifth richest self-made billionaire woman in the world.
[Zhang Xin: This is us.
The one outside is us.
.]
She's pointing out her buildings.
With her partner husband, she has built more of Beijing than almost any emperor in China's history.
Lesley Stahl: How many buildings have you and your husband built? Zhang Xin: Oh, a lot! Lesley Stahl: You can't even count them, right? Zhang Xin: Yeah.
Wherever you look you see the company logo, SOHO China, on one cutting-edge skyscraper after the next.
As a developer, Xin pays special attention to design, which is why she's been called the Steve Jobs of the architecture world.
Her buildings are fluid and futuristic - and daring -- and would be at home in New York or London: an expression of China's emergence into the modern world.
Lesley Stahl: I'm wondering when you see these buildings if it ever strikes you: you are designing Beijing.
It's a huge responsibility.
Zhang Xin: I feel that.
I really feel that.
Lesley Stahl: Do you, you feel it on your shoulders? Zhang Xin: I feel that.
I feel these buildings are forming the face of our city.
Lesley Stahl: And you build huge buildings and huge projects.
Zhang Xin: That's China, you know? China-- if you think about what is the character of China, it's enormous scale.
It's bigness.
Everything.
She took us to the site of her newest project-- [Lesley Stahl: Do you love to come out- Zhang Xin: I love coming out here.
.]
--that's so huge, it's swarming with thousands of workers.
These kinds of projects are one reason for China's explosive economic growth.
Recently though, there've been fears of overbuilding and a real estate bubble.
Xin told us that's why she keeps her focus narrow: only office buildings and only in Beijing and Shanghai.
Zhang Xin: My own view is that residential property development in China has really come into an end.
Lesley Stahl: So you don't feel there's any threat of a bursting bubble in commercial real estate in Beijing and Shanghai? Zhang Xin: I think in retail like shops, shopping malls, there is oversupply.
But office is doing-- is the only property sector that's doing well.
Lesley Stahl: Even though the future may be uncertain? Zhang Xin: The future may be uncertain in terms of-- well, the future is always uncertain wherever you go-- Lesley Stahl: But more uncertain now? Zhang Xin: Even if the certainty is not 10 percent growth for China, it goes down to seven percent growth, it's still a better place to put your money-- Lesley Stahl: Than anywhere else.
You think? Zhang Xin: I think so.
.
Lesley Stahl: You have that much faith? Zhang Xin: Uh-hmm (affirm).
That's why we're investing heavily.
Her business instincts are usually right -- they've made her enormously wealthy and a celebrity here: when she opens a new building, it can look like a Hollywood premiere.
Yet at 47 she remains grounded and unpretentious, never forgetting she grew up wretchedly poor.
She says her personal story shows that China is the new land of opportunity.
Zhang Xin: China is the place that produced more self-made billionaires than any other country in the world.
Lesley Stahl: Do you know what the American dream is? Zhang Xin: Uh-huh.
Lesley Stahl: It sounds like the American dream- doesn't it? Zhang Xin: Uh-huh.
Very much so.
How times have changed! Xin was born during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao Zedong brutally purged all the capitalists and intellectuals, whom he derided as "running dogs.
" Lesley Stahl: And if you were educated, you were- almost crushed? Zhang Xin: Uh-huh.
My parents were university graduates.
Lesley Stahl: Oh, boy.
They were in trouble-- Zhang Xin: They were sent to countryside.
I spent years in the countryside-- as part of the re-education camp.
But call it the revenge of the running dogs.
Their children are today the country's leading capitalists.
For Xin it goes back to when she was 8.
Her mother was allowed to return to Beijing where she found work as a translator.
But they were destitute and homeless, forced to sleep in an office.
Zhang Xin: I remember we would sleep on her desk.
We will use her dictionaries, 'cause my mother was a translator, as the pillow.
Lesley Stahl: You slept on the desktop, dictionary as your pillow? Zhang Xin: Pillow.
Lesley Stahl: Oh, my goodness.
Zhang Xin: Yeah, for months we did that.
When Xin was 14, she moved to Hong Kong in search of work, but life there was just as hard.
She was forced to slave away on assembly-lines as a sweat shop girl.
Zhang Xin: On my table, there are like five different chips you need to put on the board, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Then you put on the belt.
And then the belt goes down to the next one.
So we all become like machine doing that.
Lesley Stahl: So this is how you spent your teenage years? Zhang Xin: Uh-huh (affirm).
Five years doing that.
Lesley Stahl: Five years? So-- Do you look as that-- look upon that as lost years? Zhang Xin: No, I look at those as a different chapter in life.
I knew that's not a life I wanted to have.
Lesley Stahl: Did you have a dream? Zhang Xin: No.
I wanted to just escape.
So when she'd saved enough money, she bought a one way ticket to London - packed up her bags, and left.
Zhang Xin: I thought I'd need to cook for myself so I carried a wok, a Chinese wok, you know.
.
Lesley Stahl: In your suitcase? Zhang Xin: Yeah.
But forget Chinese food.
With no money, she ended up working at a fish and chips stand.
Her Dickensian journey wasn't over.
Zhang Xin: I think I was very afraid in England// only because I had never seen so many Caucasians.
Lesley Stahl: Funny looking people! Zhang Xin: Funny looking-- language I didn't understand, nothing familiar.
Lesley Stahl: You didn't know anybody? Zhang Xin: Didn't know anybody.
I sat on my suitcase, started crying.
Lesley Stahl: You end up - no one's gonna believe this - you end up working at Goldman Sachs! What a tale! From crying and alone to school to learn English, which led to a scholarship to the University of Sussex and then a masters in economics - from Cambridge! It was 1992.
And Xin's timing was perfect.
China was opening its markets to foreign investors.
Goldman Sachs sent the sweatshop girl to the mainland to look for opportunities.
But she was unhappy in the world of investment banking.
Lesley Stahl: I'll give you some of the quotes that you've said.
"People spoke crassly, treated others badly, looked down on the poor and adored the rich.
" Those are your quotes.
Zhang Xin: That's pretty much true.
I think investment banking environment was very competitive and cutthroat.
I was always looking for opportunities to leave.
Lesley Stahl: You wanted to come back to China.
Zhang Xin: I think I was just missing the idealism which was how we grew up in the Communist Socialist China when everyone was encouraged and brought up to be idealist.
And I guess I was missing what I was brought up with.
That's when she met the man she would marry, Pan Shiyi.
He was part of a wave of young idealists, committed to liberalizing China through business, in his case through a new industry: real estate.
Zhang Xin: And I remember he took me to see a construction site.
It was evening, it was late at night.
He took me-- he said, "You have to come and see what I do.
" And I went, "Wow.
I had never seen a hole that big on earth.
" And he told me, "This is a place will be the Manhattan of Beijing.
" And I laugh.
I thought-- because he hasn't been to Manhattan.
He has no idea what Manhattan means, right? The whole bunch of factories in the area, big hole on the ground.
This is not going to be a Manhattan of Beijing.
This is where we are now.
[Zhang Xin: All this area used to be factories.
.]
We stood at that spot, in a sea of offices they built: it's not Manhattan.
It's bigger! Building after building, some projects the size of entire neighborhoods and all built in the 19 yearsgoing back to the night Xin and Pan first met.
Lesley Stahl: Did you really decide to get married in four days? Zhang Xin: Yeah, we did.
And I left my bank and we joined together, formed the company, with no money, no backing.
We're-- no relationship.
None of us is the sons or the daughters of anybody in China-- Lesley Stahl: He wasn't a princeling.
Zhang Xin: No.
No, in fact just the opposite.
He came from one of the poorest provinces in China, the most impoverished place.
But she and Pan were finding out that mixing how East and West did business was not easy.
They fought constantly.
And so one day she packed her bags and went back to England.
But then she changed her mind.
Zhang Xin: I thought I just cannot give up like this.
I called him up.
I said, "You know what? I decided to stay in China.
Stay in this marriage, I'll quit the job.
I will step aside, I stay at home.
" In her time off, she got pregnant with the first of their two sons, while Pan was making a success of the company.
Zhang Xin: He did so well that there was too much work.
He couldn't handle.
So then he said, "You better come back to work.
Really, I need you to work.
" Lesley Stahl: Oh my goodness.
Zhang Xin: Everything changed from fighting, wanted to get divorced, to starting a family with a baby and the business is going well and I'm back to work.
Now they split their duties.
He focuses on everything inside China.
She uses her Wall Street know-how to raise money abroad, and hires the world's top architects.
Together they have built SOHO China into a company with $10 billion dollars in assets.
Lesley Stahl: What about corruption, though? Zhang Xin: Corruption is everywhere in China.
It's really quite widespread.
You pretty much whoever has power is in the position to be corrupt.
Lesley Stahl: So they expect you to pay them off- Zhang Xin: --to pay them off.
Lesley Stahl: So how do you operate in this environment? Zhang Xin: For instance, if we buy a piece of land, if we buy it in auction, then that's very transparent.
Lesley Stahl: Openness.
Zhang Xin: Openness, yeah.
The more openness it is, the better it is.
We don't need to know anybody, we don't need to be the daughters and sons of anybody, we can just buy with money on an open market.
[Zhang Xin: That building will stay, and the rest is all landscape.
.]
She believes open market tools like public auctions and transparent accounting will lessen the corruption and the cronyism.
The woman who once slept on a dictionary, and now has about $3 billion in her bank account, may tout China as the new land of opportunity, but she knows it's still not the land of the free.
Zhang Xin: You know, I hear a lot in the U.
S.
, people praise Wall Street, people praise state capitalism in China, "Look at how efficient things get done.
Decisions get made so quick and so effective.
It can roll over a policy overnight nationwide.
And here in the U.
S.
, we need to go through Congress, Senate, and debate.
" And you know, I have to say, for a Chinese living in China, Chinese-- if you ask one thing, everyone craves for is what? It's not food.
It's not homes.
Everyone crave for democracy.
I know there's a lot of negativities in the U.
S.
about the political system, but don't forget, you know, 8,000 miles away, people in China are looking at it, longing for it.
Lesley Stahl: Do you think there will be democracy here? Let's say, I'll put a time frame on it, in 20 years? Zhang Xin: Sooner.
Lesley Stahl: You're an optimist.
Zhang Xin: I am.
A bold statement in a country with heavy government censorship and limited freedom of speech.
And while she's thriving, China's residential real estate is in trouble.
That part of the story, when we return.
If trouble comes in threes, then what'll be the next global market to melt down after the U.
S.
and Europe? Some are looking nervously at China.
China has been nothing short of a financial miracle.
In just 30 years, this state-controlled economy became the world's second largest, deftly managed by government policies and decrees.
One sector the authorities concentrated on was real estate and construction.
But that may have created the largest housing bubble in human history.
If you go to China, it's easy to see why there's all the talk of a bubble.
We discovered that the most populated nation on earth is building houses, districts and cities with no one in them.
Lesley Stahl: So this is Zhengzhou.
And we are on the major highway, or the major road.
And it's rush hour.
Gillem Tulloch: Yeah - Lesley Stahl: And it's almost empty.
Gillem Tulloch is a Hong Kong based financial analyst who was one of the first to draw attention to the housing bubble in China.
He's showing us around the new eastern district of Zhengzhou, in one of the most populated provinces in China - not that you'd know it.
We found what they call a "ghost city" of new towers with no residents, desolate condos and vacant subdivisions uninhabited for miles, and miles, and miles, and miles of empty apartments.
Lesley Stahl: Why are they empty? I've heard that they have actually been sold.
Gillem Tulloch: They've all been sold.
They've all been sold.
Lesley Stahl: They've all been sold? They're owned.
Gillem Tulloch: Absolutely.
Owned by people in China's emerging middle class, who now have enough money to invest but few ways to do it.
They're not allowed to invest abroad, banks offer paltry returns, and the stock market is a rollercoaster.
But and allowed people to buy their own homes and the flood gates opened.
Gillem Tulloch: So what they do is they invest in property because property prices have always gone up by more than inflation.
Lesley Stahl: And they believe it will always go up? Gillem Tulloch: Yeah, just like they believed in the U.
S.
Actually, property values have doubled and tripled and more -- so people in the middle class have sunk every last penny into buying five, even 10 apartments, fueling a building bonanza unprecedented in human history.
No nation has ever built so much so fast.
Lesley Stahl: How important is real estate to the Chinese economy? Is it central? Gillem Tulloch: Yes.
It's the main driver of growth and has been for the last few years.
Some estimates have it as high as 20 or 30 percent of the whole economy.
Lesley Stahl: But they're not just building housing.
They're building cities.
Gillem Tulloch: Yes.
That's right.
Lesley Stahl: Giant cities being built with people not coming to live here.
Gillem Tulloch: Yes.
I think they're building somewhere between 12 and 24 new cities every single year.
Unlike our market driven economy, in China it's the government that has spent some $2 trillion to get these cities built - as a way of keeping the economy growing.
The assumption is "if you build it, they'll come.
" But no one's coming.
Lesley Stahl: Wow.
This is really completely, totally empty and it goes up - Gillem took us to this shopping mall that's been standing vacant for three years.
Lesley Stahl: Can I find this all over China? Gillem Tulloch: Yes, you can.
They've simply built too much infrastructure too quickly.
Lesley Stahl: But I see KFC behind you.
I see Starbucks over there.
I see some other very recognizable American franchises coming in here.
At least they-- does that mean they have faith that this is going to ignite? Gillem Tulloch: No, these are all fake signs.
Just to get potential buyers the impression of what it might look like if they moved in.
Lesley Stahl: They're not real? So I see KFC didn't- Gillem Tulloch: They haven't-- Lesley Stahl: Buy this space or rent this space? Gillem Tulloch: No, they haven't.
Lesley Stahl: Starbucks? Gillem Tulloch: No.
Lesley Stahl: They just put the sign up? Gillem Tulloch: That's right.
It's all make-believe -- non-existent supply for non existent demand.
Lesley Stahl: Look at that.
Swarovski.
Piaget.
They're hoping for high end too.
Gillem Tulloch: H&M.
Zara.
Lesley Stahl: And it's all Potemkin.
Gillem Tulloch: Yeah.
It's surreal and it's everywhere.
Like the city of Ordos in Mongolia built for a million people who didn't show up.
And no, you are not in England.
You're in Thames town -- a development near Shanghai built like an English village.
Gillem Tulloch: And it was finished, I think, around five or six years.
And it must have cost close to a billion U.
S.
dollars.
And you'll see, it's still standing there empty.
Lesley Stahl: Well, I heard that there is some industry there or some business, one business there.
Gillem Tulloch: Marriage.
Lesley Stahl: Wedding pictures! And what's more uplifting than a wedding -- or the edge of almost every city in China.
Lesley Stahl: What about the idea that China is urbanizing? People are flooding into cities by the hundreds of millions.
And that this really is a smart move: build the housing to accommodate the urbanization process.
Gillem Tulloch: Well, so people are being moved into the cities.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that they can afford these apartments which, you know, cost $100,000 U.
S.
or whatever.
I mean, these are poor people moving into the cities, so they're building the wrong sort of apartments.
And what's worse, to build all these massive cities, they've had to tear down what was there before, clearing rice fields and displacing by some counts tens of millions of villagers.
On the edge of Zhengzhou, Gillem and I came upon a strange sight.
Lesley Stahl: I'm just watching what they're doing, these-- do you have any idea? Gillem Tulloch: I think they're trying to recycle the bricks.
These villagers were salvaging what's left of their homes, bulldozed to make room for more empty condos, already encroaching in the distance.
Lesley Stahl: There are all these empty apartments over here.
Can they conceivably move into those up-scale places? Gillem Tulloch: Most people in China live on about less than $2 a day.
And these apartments probably cost upwards of $50,000 or $60,000 U.
S.
So it's very unlikely.
Lesley Stahl: What will happen to them, do you think? Gillem Tulloch: I mean, they'll be forced to relocate somewhere.
I have no idea where they'll go.
These are the immediate casualties of the building boom.
And there's another problem: analysts warn that all this building has created a bubble that could burst.
Lesley Stahl: So if the bubble bursts, who's left holding the bag? Gillem Tulloch: There are multiple classes of people that are going to get wiped out by this.
People who have invested three generations worth of savings -- so grandparents, parents and children - into properties will see their savings evaporate.
And then, of course, 50 million construction workers who are working on all these projects around China.
The prognosis of a bubble about to burst isn't only coming from financial gloom-and-doomers.
We heard it from the most unlikely source.
Lesley Stahl: Are you the biggest home builder in the world? Wang Shi: I think.
Maybe.
Lesley Stahl: You may be? Wang Shi: Yes.
Only the quantity, not quality.
Wang Shi is modest, but his company, Vanke, is a $53 billion real estate empire, building more homes than anyone in China.
He was born on the frontlines of communism, and joined the Red Army.
But he secretly read forbidden books about capitalism, so that when China liberalized its economy, he rushed to the frontlines of the free market.
Even he thinks today's situation is out of control.
Lesley Stahl: Are homes in China too expensive today? Wang Shi: Yeah.
Lesley Stahl: Here's a number I saw.
A typical apartment in Shanghai costs about 45 times the average resident's annual salary.
Wang Shi: Even higher, even higher.
Lesley Stahl: What does that mean for your economy if it's just too expensive for the vast majority of people to buy? Wang Shi: I think that dangerous.
Lesley Stahl: Dangerous.
Wang Shi: That's the bubble.
So I think that's the problem.
Lesley Stahl: Is there a bubble? Wang Shi: Yes, of course.
Lesley Stahl: There is a bubble and the issue is will it burst or not? That's the big issue-- Wang Shi: Yes, if that bubble - that's a disaster.
Lesley Stahl: If it burst? Wang Shi: If it burst, that's a disaster.
To try and prevent the disaster the Chinese government decided to act.
Heard of their one child policy? Since 2011, China has had what amounts to a one apartment policy, where it's very hard to buy more than one apartment in major cities.
Because of this, prices plunged.
The bubble was being tamed.
And yet, the taming was creating all kinds of unintended consequences.
Lesley Stahl: Are many developers in debt? Wang Shi: Yes, yes.
Lesley Stahl: And are many stopping development in the middle of projects 'cause they don't have the money to go forward? Wang Shi: Yeah, that's problem.
That's a huge problem.
A problem because the slowing down of construction led to a downturn in the overall economy.
Unfinished projects dot China, and not just apartment buildings.
Lesley Stahl: Look at this.
Can you believe it? Analyst Anne Stevenson-Yang who has traveled across China showed us a giant project all but abandoned in the port city of Tianjin with concrete skeletons as far as the eye can see.
The plan is to build a new financial district to rival Manhattan including a Lincoln Center and a World Trade Center, only taller.
But it all seems frozen.
[Anne Stevenson-Yang: There's supposed to be a Rockefeller Center here.
Anne Stevenson-Yang: I hope they have a Christmas tree too.
Skating rink.
.]
City officials told us everything stopped because developers want to build all the facades at once to match.
But on the ground we heard a different explanation.
Lesley Stahl: Workers told us that many of these buildings haven't had any work done on them for weeks, months, as if the developers just don't have the money to go on.
Anne Stevenson-Yang: It's true.
You see that happen first.
The migrant workers will go home.
That's often the first sign that the debt crisis is starting.
Lesley Stahl: The debt crisis? Anne Stevenson-Yang: Well, when you stop paying your bills, then everything stops.
It could become a debt crisis because of the huge loans most of the developers took out.
If they can't repay them, the whole economy'll seize up.
The government's great fear is that all this could lead to social unrest and that's not hypothetical.
Last year when home prices fell, it infuriated all those owners of multiple dwellings, who watched the value of their nest eggs plummet.
Lesley Stahl: And there's already been some demonstrations over real estate around the country.
Wang Shi: Yes.
Lesley Stahl: Have you had demonstrations against your showrooms anywhere? Your company? Wang Shi: Often! So often, Wang Shi shudders to think what would happen if the bubble actually burst.
Wang Shi: If that bubble break, that maybe who know what will happened? Maybe that-- maybe--maybe the next Arabic Spring-- Lesley Stahl: Arabic Spring.
You mean people coming out and demonstrating.
Wang Shi: Hmmm.
Lesley Stahl: A lot of economists say that it's too big for even this government to control.
Wang Shi: A ha.
I believe that top leaders have enough smart to deal with that.
I hope! Lesley Stahl: You're doing this.
Wang Shi: But that's uncertain.
Meanwhile, people who can afford it are still buying as much real estate as they can.
They're even finding ways around the one apartment restriction in big cities.
Can't buy in Beijing? Just cross the city line and the boom is in full swing.
Flyers advertising new projects, potential buyers crowding buses to see new construction and new owners line up to register their new apts.
Like us in our bubble, they just don't believe the good times will ever end.
In 2012, 349 active members of the Armed Forces took their own lives, more than who died in combat.
When you add the suicides among veterans, the numbers are staggering.
The VA estimates that as many as 22 veterans a day die by their own hands.
Twenty-two each day.
This is the story of one: Clay Hunt from Houston, Texas, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After four years of a downward spiral, he took his own life in 2011.
You'll see him in videos during some of his best times and hear him talk about some of his worst.
Hunt loved being a Marine and serving his country and though he had been out of the Corps for two years when he died, Clay Hunt was a casualty of war.
This is Clay Hunt about a year before he killed himself.
At 27, he thought he could make the world a better place.
[Question: Tell me who you are? Clay Hunt: My name is Clay Hunt.
I'm here because I'm needed here.
.]
When a massive earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, Hunt -- a Marine combat veteran -- went back into action as a humanitarian.
[Clay Hunt: I was there to do a job, to help people and that was such a great feeling, being able to actually get to work and help people and do good things and to not have to worry about getting shot at.
What Clay Hunt didn't say in this video is that by helping others, he was hoping to heal himself from the traumas of war.
Hunt earned a Purple Heart when he was wounded in Iraq.
A year later he deployed to Afghanistan.
On both tours, he fought alongside Jake Wood.
Jake Wood: We became as close as friends can get.
Byron Pitts: Like brothers? Jake Wood: Absolutely.
[Question: How do you know Jake? Clay Hunt: He was best man at my wedding, he's my best friend for the last few years, he's the guy I asked to go get me a beer about at me, but he's my brother, I'd die for him.
.]
Byron Pitts: He had so much going on for him.
So, how could it happen to someone like Clay Hunt? Jake Wood: I don't know.
I don't know.
Clay had the world at his fingertips.
Clay could've done anything he wanted.
He was smart.
He was good-looking, charismatic.
The ladies loved him.
He was the all-American kid.
In early 2007, Clay Hunt and Jake Wood deployed to Iraq, outside Fallujah.
Hunt later said, "that's when it all started - my life was changed forever.
" Only a month into their tour, Hunt's bunkmate, Blake Howey was killed by an IED.
Three weeks later, another friend, Nathan Windsor, was shot in an ambush.
Hunt was driving the platoon's Humvee a few yards away, under orders to stay put.
Jake Wood: Clay had to witness everything through a bulletproof windshield.
He had to sit back and watch.
And that was his job, and he did it.
But it was, I think for him, a very-- it was a feeling of helplessness.
Susan Selke: He would tell me.
He said, "Mom, that plays in my mind like a video over and over and it won't stop.
" Susan Selke and Stacy Hunt are Clay's parents.
From 6,000 miles away, they could sense the guilt and grief wash over him.
Susan Selke: He knew in his head there was nothing else that he could have done and he knew no one could have done anything more.
But in his heart, it just-- it just tore him apart.
Just tore him apart.
Stacy Hunt: It definitely changed him and in a way that we will never know how deeply it changed him.
Three days after Windsor's death, Hunt's platoon held a memorial service before heading out on patrol.
Hours later, a sniper shot Hunt through the wrist, sending him back to his base in California.
But being separated from his unit did more damage than the bullet and added to his helplessness.
Jake Wood: Just like when he was in that Humvee during Nathan's ambush, and he couldn't do anything, now he's at home and that's-- that's maddening.
Byron Pitts: Maddening because? Jake Wood: You'd like to think that you have some control over the safety and wellbeing of your brothers.
If you get sent home, you have no control.
Before long, Clay Hunt was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder - PTSD.
Despite being placed on medication, he struggled with depression, panic attacks, and sleeplessness.
Jake Wood: It marked him.
And I think he saw it as marking him as weak.
Not being able to handle it.
Byron Pitts: Did guys treat him differently once they knew? Jake Wood: No.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
He-- but he felt like they did.
Byron Pitts: I mean, there's no shame in that, right? Jake Wood: Depends on who you ask and when.
You know, ask a Marine rifleman if there's shame in having PTSD just coming back from a chest-thumping deployment to Iraq and he'll tell you, "You shouldn't have PTSD that's what we do.
" Despite his injury and PTSD, Hunt followed Jake Wood into an elite sniper unit and deployed to Afghanistan.
And that's when he started having doubts about the war.
Jake Wood: The rest of us refused to look at the larger picture of the war that we were fighting in Afghanistan.
And Clay refused to allow himself not to look at it.
He saw our friends continuing to die and get maimed.
And, you know, we would go out on these missions, and we'd get in firefights where we'd kill people.
And he had to justify that.
And when those doubts start to creep in your mind, that's when you-- that's when you start to lose your mind.
And that's what started to happen with Clay.
Hunt and Wood lost two more friends in Afghanistan.
When he left the Marine Corps in 2009, Hunt was disillusioned by war and disappointed by what he found at home.
Stacy Hunt: He was saddened by the fact that Americans didn't seem to be impacted by what was going on in the world.
That we lived kind of in a bubble.
Susan Selke: He said, "You know, the Marines are at war and America's at the mall.
" And it was just the realization of the disconnect.
Jake Wood also felt that disconnect.
He was fresh out of the Marine Corps when that earthquake struck Haiti in 2010.
Wood decided -- spur of the moment -- to lead a handful of veterans -- including Hunt -- on a relief mission.
A month later, they responded to another quake in Chile.
[Clay Hunt: We found a need and we're bridging the gap.
.]
That was the beginning of Team Rubicon, an organization that helps veterans get back into civilian life by using their military skills in disaster relief.
Byron Pitts: What did Team Rubicon, what did the experience in Haiti give Clay? Jake Wood: I think Clay found that sense of purpose, that identity that he wanted in the Marine Corps.
He was helping put people's lives back together.
At the same time, Clay Hunt was struggling to put his life on track.
His year old marriage was failing, divorce followed.
He changed medications, looking for something that relieved his depression and anxiety without debilitating side effects.
Still, Hunt wanted to help others.
When he was at Loyola Marymount University, he agreed to talk about his problems publicly in this MTV college network video about depression.
[Clay Hunt: So I'm almost 10 years older than most of my classmates and so that makes it a little hard to relate to a lot of people just cause I have a whole lot of different life experiences than most 40 year olds.
You know, I've done, seen things in my life that, for one, most people should never have to see.
.]
At the West Los Angeles VA, Hunt sought counseling off and on.
But life became more difficult as VA delays in processing his benefits put Hunt under financial stress along with his depression.
Susan Selke: He's racking up credit card debt to try to cover things until that starts coming in.
It's a very-- Byron Pitts: That must have frustrated him.
Stacy Hunt and Susan Selke: It was very frustrating.
Hunt found an outlet for his frustration riding a bicycle and through the VA he met pro-cyclist John Wordin.
When Hunt's depression hit a new low in the fall of 2010, he dropped out of college.
That's when Wordin took Hunt in to live with him and his family.
John Wordin: He was the darkest of the dark.
You could look in his eyes and you could see that hopelessness.
Byron Pitts: Could he ever articulate what it was exactly? John Wordin: He would always say, "I-- you know what, John? I don't feel like being here anymore.
" Byron Pitts: Meaning? John Wordin: He should've been killed in Iraq with his buddies.
[John Wordin: All you guys in the back, you gotta come forward!.]
Wordin has worked with people like Clay Hunt since 2007 when he started an organization called Ride 2 Recovery.
[Bicyclist: Here we go baby!.]
He organizes bike rides around the country for active duty military and veterans with psychological and physical wounds.
The rides offer camaraderie and a chance to relate to others damaged by war.
And the strenuous activity leads to something most are missing: sleep.
Last October, 200 rode from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Byron Pitts: What happens on those rides? John Wordin: It's magic.
Something happens, they get so physically tired that they let their guard down.
And all of a sudden it comes gushing out.
And it's all different.
Byron Pitts: They're not alone.
John Wordin: Not only are they not alone, but they find that they have a way to overcome it.
Byron Pitts: What was Clay like on the rides? John Wordin: He was great.
I mean, he really enjoyed riding.
That's what makes it so frustrating with how the end came.
Because, like, he was always looking forward to the next ride.
And then all of a suddenno.
Hunt told John Wordin he'd be on the Ride moved back to Houston, had a new job, a new truck, a new girlfriend, but was still haunted by what he had seen and done in war.
On March and shot himself through the head.
He was Stacy Hunt: You never dream that a child will commit suicide.
You never-- you just can't imagine things getting that bad, you know? Susan Selke: If you don't have depression and anxiety under control, it's-- it is like a cancer.
It will just-- it'll take you down.
And with his suicide, the pain and survivor's guilt that plagued Clay Hunt spread to those who knew and loved him.
Byron Pitts: Who do you blame? Do you blame anybody? Stacy Hunt: I blame myself, you know, for not, you know, seeing the deadly mixture of his depression and his PTSD and for not reacting strongly enough.
Jake Wood: I can't pretend to know what it was that was particular about Clay that made him take his own life.
Byron Pitts: How often do you ask yourself that question? Jake Wood: Every day.
You know, it'll come to you at any hour and you wonder.
What was it? What made Clay's experience and return home different from mine? What made it, you know, different from any other-- any of the other Marines we served with? And if I had known that, what could I have done differently? Byron Pitts: It sounds like you have your own measure of survivor's guilt? Jake Wood: Of course.
Do I blame myself occasionally for Clay's death? Absolutely.
Byron Pitts: Why? Jake Wood: I was Clay's partner in sniper school, and if there's one thing that you learn, is that you never under any circumstance, let your partner down.
Byron Pitts: But Clay didn't kill himself in sniper school.
He didn't kill himself in Afghanistan or Iraq.
He killed himself in his apartment, in Houston, Texas.
Jake Wood: That brotherhood doesn't stop.
Doesn't end.
Doesn't end when we take off the uniform, doesn't end when we come home.
Doesn't end 60 years from now.
I knew Clay was struggling.
I knew he would-- had been suicidal.
And I-- you know, I didn't-- there was more I could've done.
And I owed it to him to do it.
And I didn't.
Byron Pitts: You ever get angry with him about it? Jake Wood: Yeah, I cuss him out all the time.
I mean the fact that I had to come in here and do a 60 Minutes interview, and revisit all these things, I cursed him on the drive over her.
I'll curse him on the drive home.
Byron Pitts: You blame him some? Jake Wood: Unfortunately, yes.
I do.
You know, I'm having a wedding in six months, and there's a groomsmen's spot that's not going to be filled.
You know, it's like-- of course I'm angry.
Byron Pitts: I'm struck by how everyone who was close to Clay-- each of you blame yourselves.
John Wordin: You feel like you let him down.
You know, he counted on me as a guy that he knew he could count on.
He could call me anytime, anywhere.
He knew he was always welcome.
And it's not enough.
And you struggle with that.
Byron Pitts: How many Clays have you met? John Wordin: He's the only one that ever went the final step.
But guys that are like that, hundreds.
Over the five years I've been doing that-- hundreds.
[Clay Hunt: We're veterans.
We fought for our country and we've done what I think are great things.
Yeah, they can be horrible things, but that's war and that's the way war's always been, but we're doing good things for our country and I think we deserve a lot better coming home as veterans.
.]
No one symbolizes China's rapid 30-year rise -- from the backwaters of communism to the second largest economy in the world -- better than real estate developer Zhang Xin.
What's interesting about her is that while we think of China as being uncreative, repressive and as far as you can get from the American dream, she breaks every one of those stereotypes.
She's a mogul who got her start not in China, but on Wall Street.
But she missed the Great Wall, so she went back home, and made it big! The mogul, Zhang Xin, is the fifth richest self-made billionaire woman in the world.
[Zhang Xin: This is us.
The one outside is us.
.]
She's pointing out her buildings.
With her partner husband, she has built more of Beijing than almost any emperor in China's history.
Lesley Stahl: How many buildings have you and your husband built? Zhang Xin: Oh, a lot! Lesley Stahl: You can't even count them, right? Zhang Xin: Yeah.
Wherever you look you see the company logo, SOHO China, on one cutting-edge skyscraper after the next.
As a developer, Xin pays special attention to design, which is why she's been called the Steve Jobs of the architecture world.
Her buildings are fluid and futuristic - and daring -- and would be at home in New York or London: an expression of China's emergence into the modern world.
Lesley Stahl: I'm wondering when you see these buildings if it ever strikes you: you are designing Beijing.
It's a huge responsibility.
Zhang Xin: I feel that.
I really feel that.
Lesley Stahl: Do you, you feel it on your shoulders? Zhang Xin: I feel that.
I feel these buildings are forming the face of our city.
Lesley Stahl: And you build huge buildings and huge projects.
Zhang Xin: That's China, you know? China-- if you think about what is the character of China, it's enormous scale.
It's bigness.
Everything.
She took us to the site of her newest project-- [Lesley Stahl: Do you love to come out- Zhang Xin: I love coming out here.
.]
--that's so huge, it's swarming with thousands of workers.
These kinds of projects are one reason for China's explosive economic growth.
Recently though, there've been fears of overbuilding and a real estate bubble.
Xin told us that's why she keeps her focus narrow: only office buildings and only in Beijing and Shanghai.
Zhang Xin: My own view is that residential property development in China has really come into an end.
Lesley Stahl: So you don't feel there's any threat of a bursting bubble in commercial real estate in Beijing and Shanghai? Zhang Xin: I think in retail like shops, shopping malls, there is oversupply.
But office is doing-- is the only property sector that's doing well.
Lesley Stahl: Even though the future may be uncertain? Zhang Xin: The future may be uncertain in terms of-- well, the future is always uncertain wherever you go-- Lesley Stahl: But more uncertain now? Zhang Xin: Even if the certainty is not 10 percent growth for China, it goes down to seven percent growth, it's still a better place to put your money-- Lesley Stahl: Than anywhere else.
You think? Zhang Xin: I think so.
.
Lesley Stahl: You have that much faith? Zhang Xin: Uh-hmm (affirm).
That's why we're investing heavily.
Her business instincts are usually right -- they've made her enormously wealthy and a celebrity here: when she opens a new building, it can look like a Hollywood premiere.
Yet at 47 she remains grounded and unpretentious, never forgetting she grew up wretchedly poor.
She says her personal story shows that China is the new land of opportunity.
Zhang Xin: China is the place that produced more self-made billionaires than any other country in the world.
Lesley Stahl: Do you know what the American dream is? Zhang Xin: Uh-huh.
Lesley Stahl: It sounds like the American dream- doesn't it? Zhang Xin: Uh-huh.
Very much so.
How times have changed! Xin was born during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao Zedong brutally purged all the capitalists and intellectuals, whom he derided as "running dogs.
" Lesley Stahl: And if you were educated, you were- almost crushed? Zhang Xin: Uh-huh.
My parents were university graduates.
Lesley Stahl: Oh, boy.
They were in trouble-- Zhang Xin: They were sent to countryside.
I spent years in the countryside-- as part of the re-education camp.
But call it the revenge of the running dogs.
Their children are today the country's leading capitalists.
For Xin it goes back to when she was 8.
Her mother was allowed to return to Beijing where she found work as a translator.
But they were destitute and homeless, forced to sleep in an office.
Zhang Xin: I remember we would sleep on her desk.
We will use her dictionaries, 'cause my mother was a translator, as the pillow.
Lesley Stahl: You slept on the desktop, dictionary as your pillow? Zhang Xin: Pillow.
Lesley Stahl: Oh, my goodness.
Zhang Xin: Yeah, for months we did that.
When Xin was 14, she moved to Hong Kong in search of work, but life there was just as hard.
She was forced to slave away on assembly-lines as a sweat shop girl.
Zhang Xin: On my table, there are like five different chips you need to put on the board, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Then you put on the belt.
And then the belt goes down to the next one.
So we all become like machine doing that.
Lesley Stahl: So this is how you spent your teenage years? Zhang Xin: Uh-huh (affirm).
Five years doing that.
Lesley Stahl: Five years? So-- Do you look as that-- look upon that as lost years? Zhang Xin: No, I look at those as a different chapter in life.
I knew that's not a life I wanted to have.
Lesley Stahl: Did you have a dream? Zhang Xin: No.
I wanted to just escape.
So when she'd saved enough money, she bought a one way ticket to London - packed up her bags, and left.
Zhang Xin: I thought I'd need to cook for myself so I carried a wok, a Chinese wok, you know.
.
Lesley Stahl: In your suitcase? Zhang Xin: Yeah.
But forget Chinese food.
With no money, she ended up working at a fish and chips stand.
Her Dickensian journey wasn't over.
Zhang Xin: I think I was very afraid in England// only because I had never seen so many Caucasians.
Lesley Stahl: Funny looking people! Zhang Xin: Funny looking-- language I didn't understand, nothing familiar.
Lesley Stahl: You didn't know anybody? Zhang Xin: Didn't know anybody.
I sat on my suitcase, started crying.
Lesley Stahl: You end up - no one's gonna believe this - you end up working at Goldman Sachs! What a tale! From crying and alone to school to learn English, which led to a scholarship to the University of Sussex and then a masters in economics - from Cambridge! It was 1992.
And Xin's timing was perfect.
China was opening its markets to foreign investors.
Goldman Sachs sent the sweatshop girl to the mainland to look for opportunities.
But she was unhappy in the world of investment banking.
Lesley Stahl: I'll give you some of the quotes that you've said.
"People spoke crassly, treated others badly, looked down on the poor and adored the rich.
" Those are your quotes.
Zhang Xin: That's pretty much true.
I think investment banking environment was very competitive and cutthroat.
I was always looking for opportunities to leave.
Lesley Stahl: You wanted to come back to China.
Zhang Xin: I think I was just missing the idealism which was how we grew up in the Communist Socialist China when everyone was encouraged and brought up to be idealist.
And I guess I was missing what I was brought up with.
That's when she met the man she would marry, Pan Shiyi.
He was part of a wave of young idealists, committed to liberalizing China through business, in his case through a new industry: real estate.
Zhang Xin: And I remember he took me to see a construction site.
It was evening, it was late at night.
He took me-- he said, "You have to come and see what I do.
" And I went, "Wow.
I had never seen a hole that big on earth.
" And he told me, "This is a place will be the Manhattan of Beijing.
" And I laugh.
I thought-- because he hasn't been to Manhattan.
He has no idea what Manhattan means, right? The whole bunch of factories in the area, big hole on the ground.
This is not going to be a Manhattan of Beijing.
This is where we are now.
[Zhang Xin: All this area used to be factories.
.]
We stood at that spot, in a sea of offices they built: it's not Manhattan.
It's bigger! Building after building, some projects the size of entire neighborhoods and all built in the 19 yearsgoing back to the night Xin and Pan first met.
Lesley Stahl: Did you really decide to get married in four days? Zhang Xin: Yeah, we did.
And I left my bank and we joined together, formed the company, with no money, no backing.
We're-- no relationship.
None of us is the sons or the daughters of anybody in China-- Lesley Stahl: He wasn't a princeling.
Zhang Xin: No.
No, in fact just the opposite.
He came from one of the poorest provinces in China, the most impoverished place.
But she and Pan were finding out that mixing how East and West did business was not easy.
They fought constantly.
And so one day she packed her bags and went back to England.
But then she changed her mind.
Zhang Xin: I thought I just cannot give up like this.
I called him up.
I said, "You know what? I decided to stay in China.
Stay in this marriage, I'll quit the job.
I will step aside, I stay at home.
" In her time off, she got pregnant with the first of their two sons, while Pan was making a success of the company.
Zhang Xin: He did so well that there was too much work.
He couldn't handle.
So then he said, "You better come back to work.
Really, I need you to work.
" Lesley Stahl: Oh my goodness.
Zhang Xin: Everything changed from fighting, wanted to get divorced, to starting a family with a baby and the business is going well and I'm back to work.
Now they split their duties.
He focuses on everything inside China.
She uses her Wall Street know-how to raise money abroad, and hires the world's top architects.
Together they have built SOHO China into a company with $10 billion dollars in assets.
Lesley Stahl: What about corruption, though? Zhang Xin: Corruption is everywhere in China.
It's really quite widespread.
You pretty much whoever has power is in the position to be corrupt.
Lesley Stahl: So they expect you to pay them off- Zhang Xin: --to pay them off.
Lesley Stahl: So how do you operate in this environment? Zhang Xin: For instance, if we buy a piece of land, if we buy it in auction, then that's very transparent.
Lesley Stahl: Openness.
Zhang Xin: Openness, yeah.
The more openness it is, the better it is.
We don't need to know anybody, we don't need to be the daughters and sons of anybody, we can just buy with money on an open market.
[Zhang Xin: That building will stay, and the rest is all landscape.
.]
She believes open market tools like public auctions and transparent accounting will lessen the corruption and the cronyism.
The woman who once slept on a dictionary, and now has about $3 billion in her bank account, may tout China as the new land of opportunity, but she knows it's still not the land of the free.
Zhang Xin: You know, I hear a lot in the U.
S.
, people praise Wall Street, people praise state capitalism in China, "Look at how efficient things get done.
Decisions get made so quick and so effective.
It can roll over a policy overnight nationwide.
And here in the U.
S.
, we need to go through Congress, Senate, and debate.
" And you know, I have to say, for a Chinese living in China, Chinese-- if you ask one thing, everyone craves for is what? It's not food.
It's not homes.
Everyone crave for democracy.
I know there's a lot of negativities in the U.
S.
about the political system, but don't forget, you know, 8,000 miles away, people in China are looking at it, longing for it.
Lesley Stahl: Do you think there will be democracy here? Let's say, I'll put a time frame on it, in 20 years? Zhang Xin: Sooner.
Lesley Stahl: You're an optimist.
Zhang Xin: I am.
A bold statement in a country with heavy government censorship and limited freedom of speech.
And while she's thriving, China's residential real estate is in trouble.
That part of the story, when we return.
If trouble comes in threes, then what'll be the next global market to melt down after the U.
S.
and Europe? Some are looking nervously at China.
China has been nothing short of a financial miracle.
In just 30 years, this state-controlled economy became the world's second largest, deftly managed by government policies and decrees.
One sector the authorities concentrated on was real estate and construction.
But that may have created the largest housing bubble in human history.
If you go to China, it's easy to see why there's all the talk of a bubble.
We discovered that the most populated nation on earth is building houses, districts and cities with no one in them.
Lesley Stahl: So this is Zhengzhou.
And we are on the major highway, or the major road.
And it's rush hour.
Gillem Tulloch: Yeah - Lesley Stahl: And it's almost empty.
Gillem Tulloch is a Hong Kong based financial analyst who was one of the first to draw attention to the housing bubble in China.
He's showing us around the new eastern district of Zhengzhou, in one of the most populated provinces in China - not that you'd know it.
We found what they call a "ghost city" of new towers with no residents, desolate condos and vacant subdivisions uninhabited for miles, and miles, and miles, and miles of empty apartments.
Lesley Stahl: Why are they empty? I've heard that they have actually been sold.
Gillem Tulloch: They've all been sold.
They've all been sold.
Lesley Stahl: They've all been sold? They're owned.
Gillem Tulloch: Absolutely.
Owned by people in China's emerging middle class, who now have enough money to invest but few ways to do it.
They're not allowed to invest abroad, banks offer paltry returns, and the stock market is a rollercoaster.
But and allowed people to buy their own homes and the flood gates opened.
Gillem Tulloch: So what they do is they invest in property because property prices have always gone up by more than inflation.
Lesley Stahl: And they believe it will always go up? Gillem Tulloch: Yeah, just like they believed in the U.
S.
Actually, property values have doubled and tripled and more -- so people in the middle class have sunk every last penny into buying five, even 10 apartments, fueling a building bonanza unprecedented in human history.
No nation has ever built so much so fast.
Lesley Stahl: How important is real estate to the Chinese economy? Is it central? Gillem Tulloch: Yes.
It's the main driver of growth and has been for the last few years.
Some estimates have it as high as 20 or 30 percent of the whole economy.
Lesley Stahl: But they're not just building housing.
They're building cities.
Gillem Tulloch: Yes.
That's right.
Lesley Stahl: Giant cities being built with people not coming to live here.
Gillem Tulloch: Yes.
I think they're building somewhere between 12 and 24 new cities every single year.
Unlike our market driven economy, in China it's the government that has spent some $2 trillion to get these cities built - as a way of keeping the economy growing.
The assumption is "if you build it, they'll come.
" But no one's coming.
Lesley Stahl: Wow.
This is really completely, totally empty and it goes up - Gillem took us to this shopping mall that's been standing vacant for three years.
Lesley Stahl: Can I find this all over China? Gillem Tulloch: Yes, you can.
They've simply built too much infrastructure too quickly.
Lesley Stahl: But I see KFC behind you.
I see Starbucks over there.
I see some other very recognizable American franchises coming in here.
At least they-- does that mean they have faith that this is going to ignite? Gillem Tulloch: No, these are all fake signs.
Just to get potential buyers the impression of what it might look like if they moved in.
Lesley Stahl: They're not real? So I see KFC didn't- Gillem Tulloch: They haven't-- Lesley Stahl: Buy this space or rent this space? Gillem Tulloch: No, they haven't.
Lesley Stahl: Starbucks? Gillem Tulloch: No.
Lesley Stahl: They just put the sign up? Gillem Tulloch: That's right.
It's all make-believe -- non-existent supply for non existent demand.
Lesley Stahl: Look at that.
Swarovski.
Piaget.
They're hoping for high end too.
Gillem Tulloch: H&M.
Zara.
Lesley Stahl: And it's all Potemkin.
Gillem Tulloch: Yeah.
It's surreal and it's everywhere.
Like the city of Ordos in Mongolia built for a million people who didn't show up.
And no, you are not in England.
You're in Thames town -- a development near Shanghai built like an English village.
Gillem Tulloch: And it was finished, I think, around five or six years.
And it must have cost close to a billion U.
S.
dollars.
And you'll see, it's still standing there empty.
Lesley Stahl: Well, I heard that there is some industry there or some business, one business there.
Gillem Tulloch: Marriage.
Lesley Stahl: Wedding pictures! And what's more uplifting than a wedding -- or the edge of almost every city in China.
Lesley Stahl: What about the idea that China is urbanizing? People are flooding into cities by the hundreds of millions.
And that this really is a smart move: build the housing to accommodate the urbanization process.
Gillem Tulloch: Well, so people are being moved into the cities.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that they can afford these apartments which, you know, cost $100,000 U.
S.
or whatever.
I mean, these are poor people moving into the cities, so they're building the wrong sort of apartments.
And what's worse, to build all these massive cities, they've had to tear down what was there before, clearing rice fields and displacing by some counts tens of millions of villagers.
On the edge of Zhengzhou, Gillem and I came upon a strange sight.
Lesley Stahl: I'm just watching what they're doing, these-- do you have any idea? Gillem Tulloch: I think they're trying to recycle the bricks.
These villagers were salvaging what's left of their homes, bulldozed to make room for more empty condos, already encroaching in the distance.
Lesley Stahl: There are all these empty apartments over here.
Can they conceivably move into those up-scale places? Gillem Tulloch: Most people in China live on about less than $2 a day.
And these apartments probably cost upwards of $50,000 or $60,000 U.
S.
So it's very unlikely.
Lesley Stahl: What will happen to them, do you think? Gillem Tulloch: I mean, they'll be forced to relocate somewhere.
I have no idea where they'll go.
These are the immediate casualties of the building boom.
And there's another problem: analysts warn that all this building has created a bubble that could burst.
Lesley Stahl: So if the bubble bursts, who's left holding the bag? Gillem Tulloch: There are multiple classes of people that are going to get wiped out by this.
People who have invested three generations worth of savings -- so grandparents, parents and children - into properties will see their savings evaporate.
And then, of course, 50 million construction workers who are working on all these projects around China.
The prognosis of a bubble about to burst isn't only coming from financial gloom-and-doomers.
We heard it from the most unlikely source.
Lesley Stahl: Are you the biggest home builder in the world? Wang Shi: I think.
Maybe.
Lesley Stahl: You may be? Wang Shi: Yes.
Only the quantity, not quality.
Wang Shi is modest, but his company, Vanke, is a $53 billion real estate empire, building more homes than anyone in China.
He was born on the frontlines of communism, and joined the Red Army.
But he secretly read forbidden books about capitalism, so that when China liberalized its economy, he rushed to the frontlines of the free market.
Even he thinks today's situation is out of control.
Lesley Stahl: Are homes in China too expensive today? Wang Shi: Yeah.
Lesley Stahl: Here's a number I saw.
A typical apartment in Shanghai costs about 45 times the average resident's annual salary.
Wang Shi: Even higher, even higher.
Lesley Stahl: What does that mean for your economy if it's just too expensive for the vast majority of people to buy? Wang Shi: I think that dangerous.
Lesley Stahl: Dangerous.
Wang Shi: That's the bubble.
So I think that's the problem.
Lesley Stahl: Is there a bubble? Wang Shi: Yes, of course.
Lesley Stahl: There is a bubble and the issue is will it burst or not? That's the big issue-- Wang Shi: Yes, if that bubble - that's a disaster.
Lesley Stahl: If it burst? Wang Shi: If it burst, that's a disaster.
To try and prevent the disaster the Chinese government decided to act.
Heard of their one child policy? Since 2011, China has had what amounts to a one apartment policy, where it's very hard to buy more than one apartment in major cities.
Because of this, prices plunged.
The bubble was being tamed.
And yet, the taming was creating all kinds of unintended consequences.
Lesley Stahl: Are many developers in debt? Wang Shi: Yes, yes.
Lesley Stahl: And are many stopping development in the middle of projects 'cause they don't have the money to go forward? Wang Shi: Yeah, that's problem.
That's a huge problem.
A problem because the slowing down of construction led to a downturn in the overall economy.
Unfinished projects dot China, and not just apartment buildings.
Lesley Stahl: Look at this.
Can you believe it? Analyst Anne Stevenson-Yang who has traveled across China showed us a giant project all but abandoned in the port city of Tianjin with concrete skeletons as far as the eye can see.
The plan is to build a new financial district to rival Manhattan including a Lincoln Center and a World Trade Center, only taller.
But it all seems frozen.
[Anne Stevenson-Yang: There's supposed to be a Rockefeller Center here.
Anne Stevenson-Yang: I hope they have a Christmas tree too.
Skating rink.
.]
City officials told us everything stopped because developers want to build all the facades at once to match.
But on the ground we heard a different explanation.
Lesley Stahl: Workers told us that many of these buildings haven't had any work done on them for weeks, months, as if the developers just don't have the money to go on.
Anne Stevenson-Yang: It's true.
You see that happen first.
The migrant workers will go home.
That's often the first sign that the debt crisis is starting.
Lesley Stahl: The debt crisis? Anne Stevenson-Yang: Well, when you stop paying your bills, then everything stops.
It could become a debt crisis because of the huge loans most of the developers took out.
If they can't repay them, the whole economy'll seize up.
The government's great fear is that all this could lead to social unrest and that's not hypothetical.
Last year when home prices fell, it infuriated all those owners of multiple dwellings, who watched the value of their nest eggs plummet.
Lesley Stahl: And there's already been some demonstrations over real estate around the country.
Wang Shi: Yes.
Lesley Stahl: Have you had demonstrations against your showrooms anywhere? Your company? Wang Shi: Often! So often, Wang Shi shudders to think what would happen if the bubble actually burst.
Wang Shi: If that bubble break, that maybe who know what will happened? Maybe that-- maybe--maybe the next Arabic Spring-- Lesley Stahl: Arabic Spring.
You mean people coming out and demonstrating.
Wang Shi: Hmmm.
Lesley Stahl: A lot of economists say that it's too big for even this government to control.
Wang Shi: A ha.
I believe that top leaders have enough smart to deal with that.
I hope! Lesley Stahl: You're doing this.
Wang Shi: But that's uncertain.
Meanwhile, people who can afford it are still buying as much real estate as they can.
They're even finding ways around the one apartment restriction in big cities.
Can't buy in Beijing? Just cross the city line and the boom is in full swing.
Flyers advertising new projects, potential buyers crowding buses to see new construction and new owners line up to register their new apts.
Like us in our bubble, they just don't believe the good times will ever end.