ABSTRACT
Over the past two decades China has embarked on a process of development that has taken it at breathtaking speed from a poor, largely rural economy to a global economic force. The sheer size of its workforce and the speed of its transformation have posed enormous challenges for many countries around the world, but nowhere more than in its own backyard. The challenge is particularly important in Asia because most of these countries, including Japan, have tended to rely on the same export-led model of growth that China has used so successfully. From the point of view of smaller and in some cases more-developed Asian economies, it would be hard not to see China’s low-cost labour force and enormous scope for economies of scale as a fearsome competitive threat. At the same time, however, China offers enormous opportunities as both a partner in production and a huge potential market of more than a billion consumers.
