Few Chinese companies have been more adept at targeting the aspirational middle class than Vanke, the country’s biggest property developer. On the outskirts of Hangzhou, the company is putting the finishing touches to a gated community called “A Glamorous City”, aimed at young professionals in one of the hubs of China’s private-sector economy.

Yet the showroom at A Glamorous City is closed after a group of customers vandalised it at the weekend. At Vanke’s office in central Hangzhou, a city in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, two armed security guards in faux-army fatigues block the front entrance after another group of customers trashed the premises on Sunday, destroying furniture and overturning desks.