LETTER FROM BEIJING/Clifford Coonan: Every day 1,000 new cars feed into the traffic gridlock on Beijing's roads - there are more than two million cars in this city of 13 million. By 2008, when the Chinese capital hosts the Olympic Games, there will be 3.5 million.
Sometimes, sitting in an unmoving taxi in a jam of cars on a sclerotic ring road, eyes running and lungs wheezing from air pollution, it feels like traffic hell is already here.
Originally, the government expected the number of cars in Beijing to reach two million by 2010. This target was overtaken a few months ago and car-buying frenzy shows no signs of serious slowdown, even if government efforts to make credit more expensive have braked runaway growth a little.
The number of cars in Beijing rose by 145,000 in the first five months of the year. Of every four cars sold in the nation, one is in Beijing. The bicycle, so long the king of the road, is being slowly replaced - bike use is down from 70 per cent 15 years ago to 30 per cent.
"People who used to get up at 7 a.m. now get up at 6.30, but it's very difficult to restrain people from using cars once they have bought them. Putting in policy is one thing - changing human behaviour is another," said one analyst.
In China people have dreamt of owning their own car for years, so the number of owners, and the amount they use their car, are rising at an extremely fast rate.
It sounds crazy to western ears, used to traffic initiatives, new cycle paths, clean air acts and fearful of the effects of greenhouse gases and air pollution, but Beijing's municipal authorities have no plans to control the number of cars on the city's streets, and for sound political reasons.
In the New China, owning a car is a badge of success, a pillar of the world's fastest growing major economy.
"Owning a car is also a symbol that society is developing," said Liu Xiaoming, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Communications Commission.
"We do not plan to announce any policies to control the number of cars. The automobile industry is a pillar of the economy and we actively support the development of the sector," said Mr Liu.
China's auto market is still pretty much in its infancy, even though the streets seem full. There are only eight cars for every 1,000 people of driving age, compared to nearly one to one in the United States.
There is room for growth here, obviously. On top of this, government taxes and official red tape have been cut, making it still easier to buy a car.
Which is all very well but the 2008 Olympics are viewed as a showcase depicting China as a world superpower, a country that is open to the world and a great place to do business. Traffic chaos would not go down well during the Olympics and city authorities are very keen to relieve congestion ahead of the Games.
The focus has switched to improving public transport, raising parking fees and controlling the number of parking spaces to keep cars out of the city centre. The city is planning to invest around €17 billion to improve the city's transport infrastructure before the Games. It will invest €3 billion this year in mass-transit railway lines, which are expected to have a daily capacity of 4.5 million passengers in 2008.
Another key factor is a four-year campaign aimed at improving the education of local drivers. As anyone who has visited the city knows, many local drivers manage to successfully combine poor driving skills with a flagrant disregard for traffic rules.
Many of the rules were implemented years ago, when there were very few cars and people on the roads and analysts say that any change is going to have to be gradual.
Mr Liu was under no illusions, however. He said there could still be traffic jams in 2008 - despite the government's best efforts.