China's challenge now to forge own path
With 30 years growth China has been transformed from a closed, centrally controlled planned economy of scarcity to a large, open market economy. In the past decade or so, China has acted as the main engine of globalization.
The prediction of Napoleon Bonaparte has finally come true: When China wakes, she will shake the world. China does so with cheap manufactures for the global market. The world price structure has changed as a result of China's economic power.
The global financial meltdown started in the United States with a domino effect on the entire capitalist market economy. In the West, credit has been crunched; bankruptcy has rocketed; sales nosedived and company lay-offs have been wide spread. The problem for China is that the injured West has been China's symbiotic growth partner over the past three decades. If the West is down, can China stand alone?
