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He has spent 20 yuan ($3) at Ding's electrical appliance shop on a heat-belt, which he can fill with boiling water and strap around his waist to ward off the bitter winter chill on the Himalayan plateau.

The 66-year-old grins: "I already have a television at home. But I would like a washing machine and a fridge. I hope to buy those next year."

Timothy Geithner harbors similar hopes. The U.S. Treasury Secretary is counting on hundreds of millions of Chinese like Gyelyanjia to spend more and save less.

That way, Chinese factories would produce more for domestic

consumption and less for export, helping to narrow the trade imbalances that are destabilizing the global economy.

Chinese consumption is, in fact, strong. It has grown by more than 9 percent a year, after adjustment for inflation, over the past decade. China overtook the United States in 2009 as the world's leading automobile market. The real-estate market is on fire, swelling demand for appliances and furniture. China is No. 2 in sales of luxury goods.

There are no luxuries for sale in Xiahe, a rapidly developing town in the western province of Gansu and home to Labrang monastery, the largest outside Tibet.

Tibetans wrapped in long woolen robes, their hair falling in long plaits, crowd the broad pavement lined with shops along the main street leading to the sprawling monastery. Monks, taking a break from their prayers, chat on mobile phones on their way to the tea house or to buy a pair of handmade felt boots.

Renqing, 33, who like many Tibetans uses only one name, watches over her two-year-old daughter, sleeping in her stroller outside a shop. "Life is difficult for us. I only have enough money to feed and clothe my family."

Still, she admits, she has a washing machine, a fridge, a television and a computer at home. And, of course, a DVD player. But it's not enough. "If there's one thing I dream of having, it's Tibetan religious art. I wish I could buy statues to put in my home."

The Ding family are Hui minority Muslims. Mrs Ding Yuying gestures around her store filled with freezers and televisions. "Business is up 50 percent this year because the government has given a subsidy to farmers to buy electrical goods," she said.

Yet appearances are deceptive, at least through the prism of economic statistics.

INVESTMENT TRUMPS CONSUMPTION

Spending might be sturdy in China, but investment has been off the charts. As a result, consumption was just 35.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2009, from 46.1 percent a decade earlier - and that was helped by a massive government stimulus to counter the global financial crisis.