THE elderly leadership in Beijing had better watch out, or they'll end up spending all their yuan on Amway Nutrilite vitamins and DishDrops washing-up liquid.
The reason: Amway Asia Pacific is recruiting Jing Shuping - a 75-year-old director of CITIC and longtime member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference - as a director.
Amway, remember, is the ''network marketing'' - don't say ''pyramid selling'' - outfit where friends sell their friends everything from lipstick to car wax, spurred on by big sales incentives which turn enthusiastic bank clerks into big money earners.
It's done huge business in Hong Kong, and the flotation of Hong Kong-based Amway Asia Pacific means for the first time it's possible to see just how huge.
Last year, Amway had local sales of $461 million, according to its prospectus.
And if the company was being floated here instead of New York and Australia, its $8.2 billion market capitalisation would make it Hong Kong's 47th-largest listed firm - about the same size as Peregrine Investments, Shanghai Petrochemical or Kowloon MotorBus.