From the outside it looks like an art gallery. But this is a gallery of toilets, brought to the residents of Shanghai by Roca, the Spanish bathroom people. It has loos disguised as stacks of books and conveniences that flush with grey water from the sink. The best seller is a sleek commode designed by a former Audi stylist, with a leather seat made by the people who supply BMW with motorcycle perches.

The best-selling colours? A striking deep red, viewed as lucky, and a deliciously understated champagne gold known as tuhaojin, or “nouveau riche gold”. Roca’s China manager says the tuhaojin toilet became popular after Apple launched a golden iPhone in China last year. “People apparently wanted a toilet like their iPhone,” he says.

Nothing would be easier than to caricature China’s golden water closets as symbols of a civilisation in decline. But that’s not what I see in them. Because development is always, when it comes right down to it, about just such everyday intimacies: is the loo half a football field away or right next to the bedroom? Does it reek or sit there quietly conserving water? Does it open automatically, play music and let you trade stocks from the comfort of its heated surface? Proper pundits mutter darkly about rule of law and universal suffrage, shadow banking and debt defaults. But I prefer to tell a tale of toilets.