Jason Lee / Reuters Residential and commercial buildings are pictured in Vancouver, British Columbia June 20, 2011. Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Monday he continues to monitor the country's housing market, which has some

By Tiffany Greene, with contributions from Evan Shao and Stephen Punwasi

Shots fired! While our media has been pointing out how Chinese buyers are driving up real estate prices, the Chinese media has been dissecting our economy and government, and warning Chinese buyers of the dangers of owning Canadian real estate.

We're always curious to know how other countries interpret our statistics, political climate and what outside media is reporting about Canada's economy. Since China has been a hot-button subject in Canadian news recently, we thought it was high time we took a look at how Canada is portrayed in China's state-regulated media.

While the Chinese media does acknowledge that Chinese buyers are a contributing factor to our prices -- and admit they have been capitalizing on it -- they also point out some interesting observations that our media has failed to cover. Here are the most interesting points we found from three major Chinese publications.

Worse Than The 2008 U.S. Crash

Hexun, China's largest finance portal, recently published an article pointing to Canada's debt-fuelled economy. They noted that Canadians have the largest debt-to-income ratio of any G7 country, with the average spending 165 per cent of their salary. To contrast, at the height of the U.S. housing crisis in 2008, Americans carried what was then considered an outlandish 147 per cent debt-to-income ratio -- 17 points lower than where we currently sit.

Canada's total household debt reached $1.892 trillion, with $1.234 trillion of that as mortgage debt -- roughly 65 per cent more than we make per year. To put that $1.82 trillion into perspective, we could have run the U.S. government for eight months with that amount of money.

"This is a very big bubble. And it's going to end in tears." -- Paul Ashworth

CN Gold, another one of China's large financial sites, ran an article quoting Toronto-based economist Paul Ashworth who told them "This is a very big bubble. And it's going to end in tears." They then went on to say that once this bubble bursts, real estate will likely be a major "blow to the Canadian economy."

Real Estate As An Economy Booster

Sina.com's real estate partner and NYSE-listed Leju was quick to point out that while the average home price in Vancouver is up more than 30 per cent, the province is in a state of "stagflation." Stagflation is a fancy word that describes when the cost of living increases but there is stagnant demand in the economy. They go on to say B.C. has one of the lowest median incomes in the country, and the B.C. government is hoping rising home prices will "render some good."