Made in China: Your Job, future, and fortune
(abcnews)
Updated: 2005-09-22 08:15

Waking the Dragon

About 200 years ago, Napoleon returned from China and said, "That is a sleeping dragon. Let him sleep! If he wakes, he will shake the world."

Wal-Mart is just one American company popping up in China. [ABC NEWS]

China seemed asleep in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the country was ravaged by civil unrest, famines, military defeats and foreign occupation before the end of WWII when the Communists established a socialist system with strict controls over everyday life.

In 2005, the dragon is wide awake, and restless.

Meet Gwei-Ching. At first glance, he appears to represent the traditional image of China. He is a cabbage farmer living in a tiny house without plumbing, and supports his family on $20 a week.

But in the middle of a conversation with a vising reporter, Gwei-Ching's cell phone rings. It is a sharp reminder that this once-agricultural society is rapidly transforming into a new China.

"[M]ore people in China have cell phones than there are people in America," explains Tom Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times who has written several books on the developing world.

In the United States, there are nine urban centers with more than a million people, China has 174; Chinese will soon pass English as the most commonly used language on the Internet. With a population of 1.3 billion, Chinese outnumber Americans four to one, and their economy has the potential to rush past America's as well.

Race to the Top

China is thinking big.

"China's not racing us to the bottom," says Friedman. "They're racing us to the top. They don't want to work for General Motors. They want to be General Motors."

Over the past 25 years, 400 million Chinese have risen out of $1 a day poverty. The average citizen's income has quadrupled, and with advancements in technology, many believe it is only a matter of time before this "developing country" develops into a rival superpower.

At the Microsoft lab in Beijing, employees are not just assembling, but also inventing software. A few miles away, at the Genomics Lab, Chinese researchers are mapping the human genome.

"In science, there is no No. 2, only No. 1," said Darren Cai of Genomics. "We use 24 hours, 7 days, compared to other people's 5 days, 8 hours, and that's how we can squeeze more out and getting a cost advantage here in China."

To understand the warp speed at which this lab is operating, consider this. When the SARS virus recently hit Asia, Genomics was able to isolate the genetic makeup of the virus in a day and a half.

"The next great breakthrough in bioscience could some from a 15-year-old in Guangzho who downloads the human genome from Google wirelessly while walking down the street," Friedman said.

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