The Dragon Chases Oil

Since 1980, China’s economy has grown faster for longer than any country in history, doubling every six to seven years. In the 1980s and ’90s, that exponential growth went largely unnoticed because it applied to a tiny economic base. But as that base expanded, each doubling added ever-increasing amounts of capacity and strength.

By 2000, China needed only one more doubling to burst upon the global economic stage as a leading actor. Recognizing that dynamic, the world’s manufacturing firms quickly moved into China to take advantage of its rapidly growing domestic market and its vast quantities of low-paid, highly educated and well-disciplined labor force.

In 2004, the curtain went up on China’s performance. And what a performance it was.

AlterNet.org