Prostitution has grown with China's economic boom, and little can be done to stem the vice trade

SOME call Shenyang 'the city of sex'. It has 5,225 'places of entertainment' - saunas, massage parlours, dance halls and nightclubs - for its six million people, more than Beijing, which has double the population. Shenyang, in China's northeast province of Liaoning, also has an estimated 100,000 prostitutes, more than any other city in the country.

The heart of the city of sex is 'Camp David', a three-storey building with a floor area of 10,000 square metres, providing tea shops, billiards, bowling, restaurants, dance halls, massages, karaoke, saunas, baths - and the best looking, professional and most expensive ladies in town.

It is built on land that belongs to the army, is next door to a military club and military theatre and is about 100 metres from the city's main police station. But it has experienced difficulties since Beijing launched a three-month 'strike hard' campaign on July 1 against drugs, gambling and prostitution. 'Business is suffering,' says the telephone operator at Camp David. 'We have been unable to provide ladies since the start of the campaign. But you can enjoy our other services - a sauna for 80 yuan [about HK$75] and 680 yuan for a karaoke room from six until two in the morning.'

How about October, when the campaign is due to end? 'We cannot promise anything. The crackdown is tough this year.'

Camp David is the tip of the iceberg of the mainland's fastest-growing and most-profitable industry: the sex business. It was one of the darkest episodes of the Deng Xiaoping era, as told in a detailed expose by the China News Weekly.

According to official figures, police nationwide detained 450,000 prostitutes, clients and pimps last year, 75 times the 6,000 detained in 1984. Unofficial estimates put the annual turnover of the entertainment business at 300 billion yuan, about 10 per cent of total consumer spending.