Well, Jewish fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg thinks she knows.

She told an interviewer at a Bloomberg panel event: "The Chinese people are very individual.

"I mean, they are not like the Japanese that are obedient. They're very — they're like Jews, really, except that there is a lot more of them.

"And you know, I mean, try to think of governing a billion and a half Jews."

It's hard to tell quite what the wrap-dress queen meant, although there's a debate raging on the comment section of New York magazine as to whether this was an a) questionable slur involving cheap cultural stereotypes, b) amusing joke or c) drunken raving.

My favourite is this gem, from the delightfully named Harlem Bubbelah: "Fashion folk need to stop with the anthropological observations even if they are of the tribe from whence they speaketh."

Quite.