Songfacts®:

• This song was inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, specifically, a line about Frankenstein's dreams crumbling: "Don't push too hard, your dreams are china in your hand."
• T'Pau lead singer Carol Decker revealed in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, "I was watching a documentary on the whole Mary Shelley and Byron and Keats gang and was enthralled by how, at 19, she outsold both noted poets. But her success caused much dissent and jealousy in her marriage and friendships, so created her own monster. It is a story within a story, be careful what you wish for in case you get it. Ronnie's (Rogers - the band's guitarist) mother gave us a china tea-set and if you lifted the cups up to the light you can see a woman's face in the bottom. The cups were paper thin and so fragile when you held it in your hand. I guess subconsciously that's how I got the title."
• This song spent an amazing five weeks at #1 in the UK, but at the time, T'Pau was touring other parts of Europe as the opening act for Bryan Adams. When they returned, they were far more famous than when they left, and suddenly had to deal with autograph requests and other byproducts of their sudden popularity.
• Unlike "Heart And Soul," Carol Decker got bored with this song pretty quickly, and struggled with having it define her career in the UK. "I wish I'd never written "China In Your Hand," she told Melody Maker in 1988. "I'm sick to death of summoning up the enthusiasm to sing that frigging song. It's a millstone round my neck."
• The single is a re-recorded shorter version of the album version.
• This song almost didn't make the album. Carol Decker had recorded a simple piano-and-vocal demo of the song but hadn't planned to use it. When another track they were working on fell apart, leaving them one song short, Decker revisited her cassette demo, and the band decided to record it.
  
  "It was half-finished," Decker shared with Leona Graham on her podcast. "It wasn't one of the songs that helped us get the record deal. While we were recording near Chicago, one track just wasn't working. Roy Thomas Baker said, 'We're wasting time on this; we need to drop it. Do you have anything else?' I told him, 'Well, I've got this, but it's not finished.' I played him the first verse and chorus, and he said, 'That's a brilliant song.' I took a couple of hours to finish writing it, and Roy brought it to life. He's the master of big ballads - just look at 'Bohemian Rhapsody' - so it was in safe hands. It turned into this massive hit."