China's awesome rise

Here's a good reminder about China's enormous rapid economic growth, a multidimensional report. Get scared, and start worrying about how we're doing. China is the new mecca that all the businesses are flocking to.

Forget about its huge consumer market, but they've managed to use that for their benefit, and become a major producer. Their policy of forcing multinationals who are so eager to tap that market to couple with local developers I think is one of the keys to how they developed their technology industry and matured it so well.

Its not just the major cities of Beijing and Shanghai that are doing well, but the poor west is picking up as well. In Chengdu:

hundreds of high-octane multinational companies, including Alcatel, Corning, Ericsson, and Microsoft, have established branches. An hour and a half's drive from the city, Phoenix-based ON Semiconductor Corp., which spun off from Motorola Inc. in 1999, operates a joint-venture IC assembly-and-test plant with 2000 workers. It is now building a semiconductor facility next door; the 150-millimeter wafer fab will be the first in western China. Negotiations are also under way with IBM for what would be its largest software outsourcing center anywhere. In 2004 alone, Chengdu attracted $7 billion in foreign capital investments, making it the fastest-growing high-tech center in western China.

The story around here when some Japanese wanted to build an IC fabrication plant and they were talking about the requirements for building a Cleanroom for the plant with the guys at the Ministry of Industry, the reply was; "Egypt is not dirty, Egypt is clean, we don't need no special clean rooms!"

My relationship with my good old Chinese friends is fading away with the years, but they sure were good guys. I was so eager to go to China at one point, almost made it to Tibet, but that lousy virus ruined the plans. Seems like very far fetched plans now. And going to work there for a few months didn't work out before, and is certainly very unlikely now. I have to figure a way to get connected again to that upcoming superpower. Almost impossible to speak their language. Should we start with Cantonese or Mandarin? Well, atleast I like their food.

I've mentioned the Chinese once before here. One obvious difference between Chinese and Egyptians, is that they can work well together, so well. They're incredibly patriotic too, and they're persistant like crazy. There was this religious cult that was being prosecuted in China and they held a demonstration for over three years infront of one of China's embassies abroad. No kidding, they setup a tent and a display infront of the embassy, and rotated people 24/7 for over three years. But ofcourse, all the other patriotic Chinese called them crazy. If you think Egyptians are survivors and hard workers (this one is questionable), you ought to go see the Chinese.