"China in Your Hand" is a song by British band T'Pau, released from their

album Bridge of Spies.

A re-recorded version was released as a single in October 1987, spending five
weeks at number 1 in the UK and is arguably the song for which the group is best
known in their native Britain, though their debut single "Heart and Soul" was a much
bigger hit in the United States.
"China in Your Hand" was the 600th song to top the UK charts, and kept George
Harrison's "Got My Mind Set on You" from hitting the top spot.
The song's lyrics refer to the novel Frankenstein and its author Mary Shelley.
This is more readily heard on the longer album version of the song, as the rerecorded single edit omits most of the more obvious references to the book.
The song's title was more unclear however and when quizzed, co-writer Ron
Rogers was unsure of to what it referred.
Lyric writer Carol Decker explained that it is the effect that if you hold a china
cup to a light, you can see your hand through it therefore 'china in your hand'
means something that is transparent.
In a segment on the BBC1's The One Show on 6 March 2014, Carol Decker
explained that she had been holding a china tea cup belonging to Ronnie Roger's
mother in her hand while washing up and had felt a lump in the bottom. She held the
cup to the light and saw an image of a young woman in the base of the cup. Decker
had the cup with her and showed the viewers the image. Sadly Ronnie's mother died
of breast cancer just before T'Pau achieved major chart success.
The song is in the key of B-Flat major on the original album version but the radio
edit version is slightly sped up to reduce its length resulting in the tuning being midway between B-Flat and B Major.
In 2011, contestant Amelia Lily performed the song on series 8 of UK's The X
Factor. Judge Gary Barlow said it was "nice to hear the song being sung in tune for
once", in mockery of Decker, who reacted to the comment via Twitter.
British EDM artist Jimmy Rotten used a sample of the song's intro in his track
"Join Hands".