You should plan to really visit China -- quite a place at any time, extra "interesting" right now. And don’t worry about SARS! In Shanghai, we've had 2 deaths in a city of 17 million people, have an average of about 8 cases suspected/probable/in treatment at any time, are discharging people who've recovered regularly: 2/17,000,000 (P = .00000012) over nearly 6 months is not something I worry about. On the other hand, the likelihood of being run over by a taxi is real given the number new drivers let loose on the roads every week!

Within 2 miles of where I sit, Hitachi and Sony have major manufacturing operations which have been here for several years already and expand continually. Japanese auto manufacturers have been setting up production operations for some time, Volkswagen has a number of plants working (one which has been here for more than 15 years), GM has had world-class autos coming off their lines here for 4+ years and is now shipping engines made here back to North America. Dell, Cisco and Intel have operations in China’s interior and their suppliers have been establishing local supply for more than 2 years. While the West focuses on export data, Western manufacturers are selling successfully to the domestic market. The major aircraft manufacturers have been increasing their sourcing of parts within China for several years now (admittedly not without quality problems). The improvement in the supplier base in just the past two years has been remarkable.

Clearly, there is more to the story of POM activity in China than that suggested by Foreign Direct Investment figures published by the US Government!

Given the economic, social and political situation in China since the death of Mao Zedong, at least three selected time periods can be related to events within the country which have had an impact on manufacturing activity. It might be noted that China experts tend to place such programs as Reform and Opening Up, etc., into these three time periods of development:
Stage 1: 1978-1986,
Stage 2: 1987-1996,
Stage 3: 1997-2002.

Stage 3 is likely going to end in 2002 with the shift in regimes last fall; we are probably in the early days of Stage 4 now. There are also time blocks specifically tied to the deaths of Mao Zedong (1976), Deng Xiaoping (1997) and the “retirement” of Jiang Zemin (2002). See, for example, Brahm, Laurence J. and Stephen X.M. Lu, Re-engineering China, Naga, P.O. Box 10250, General Post Office, Hong Kong, 1999.

What should be – and what will be -- the relationships between the Central Government, Provincial Governments and privatized manufacturing industry (including WOFEs) in the execution of the Supply-Chain-related strategies and programs described in The Tenth Five-Year Plan of China? (WOFE = Wholly-Owned Foreign Enterprises) This is the real question that we will need to consider soon.