If you want to learn how China's export engine works, check out the Canton Fair.
It's been 10 years since China joined the WTO, a landmark event in the process of China's opening-up to the outside world. Despite great concerns both in China and in other member states about the challenges China would face and those it might bring to other members, the worst-case scenario did not happen. On the contrary, China's membership has proved to be positive both for the country and for the rest of the world.
In July 1978, Hong Kong businessman Zhang Zimi approached the Dongguan government, in South China's Guangdong province, with a radical idea: to start making handbags for the Hong Kong market. Zhang's deal called for him to inject HK$2 million and provide the designs and raw materials.