ABSTRACT
On a recent trip to Shanghai, I spent a day conducting interviews out in the Waigaichao industrial district of Pudong. The Waigaichao industrial district is an area northeast of Shanghai that offers foreign corporations special tax incentives for investing in the region. It also allows corporations which are importing parts easy access to the Huangpu River as well as access to a bonded zone, which is the initial stop for such imported parts. Many of the most modern factories in China, such as the General Motors factory, are positioned within or near this zone. On the drive back to the city center, as we crossed the southernmost bridge of the Huangpu River, my colleague glibly noted, as he gazed out the window up the river, “There it is, the busiest river in the world.” And looking up the river from that vantage point, the sight is almost amusing. There were so many barges plodding their way up the river that it looked like a traffic jam of cargo. There was barge after barge, separated from each other by only a few feet, for as far as the eye could see.
