China’s influence on the global economy has been a recurring topic of discussion in this book – and in the world at large. How could it be otherwise? It is literally changing the balance of economic and political power among nations.

Just thirty-five years ago this would have seemed impossible. The country was in social and economic turmoil following Mao Zedong’s Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution. In a resolution issued on June 30, 1981 the Chinese Communist Party said that this initiative, “which lasted from May 1966 to October 1976, was responsible for the most severe setback and heaviest losses suffered by the party, the state and the people since the founding of the People’s Republic.”

Today China has recovered from this low point to become the world’s second largest economy. Its factories churn out consumer goods and industrial products for export to every part of the globe. Its balanceof- trade surplus is the envy and despair of its trading partners. The Chinese people are increasingly affluent, buying modern conveniences and luxury goods that many never dared to dream of possessing.