But the scale of the threat was highlighted earlier this week when the chairman of China Mobile - the world's largest telecom carrier - said his firm was now more concerned about the challenge posed by Microsoft's Skype and Tencent's WeChat services than it was about competition from China's rival mobile networks.
It got an additional boost from China's state-run media, with the official Xinhua news agency naming it one of the most influential books of last year.
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It's starting from a position of strength in North America and China, and it hasn't even begun to wring out global inefficiency.
Founded in 1973, Cloud Gate (it gets its name from China's oldest dance, dating back 5, 000 years) is on a nonstop voyage through world cultures, fusing tai chi, meditation, Chinese opera, modern dance and ballet into an art form that has captivated international audiences.
And here's one of the best things about energy efficiency -- it turns out that energy-efficient windows or insulation, those things are products that are almost exclusively manufactured right here in the United States of America. (Applause.) It's very hard to ship windows from China. (Laughter.) So a lot of these materials are made right here in America.
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Distant as it is from the region, China's growing involvement there will make that laudable goal ever harder to reach.
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It would hasten the reorientation of China's economy from exports to consumer spending, give its central bank more freedom to fight inflation, and divert demand to depressed Europe and America, catalysing an essential rebalancing of the global economy.
For example, production of an iPhone is spread across several countries yet in U.S. trade statistics it counts as an import only from China.
Chongqing also hopes to turn a wave of migration into a labor pool for the low-wage manufacturing industries it is trying to lure to move from China's coastal areas.
It's only a matter of time before Buicks are exported from China as well.
They also point out that China's sheer size will protect it from the commodity trap.
Symington's said it currently took eight to 10 weeks to source noodles from China.
"We buy most of our products now from China and other countries, so perhaps it's not too surprising that to manufacture new products and packaging they need the material to go back there, " spokesman David Mansell said.
Meanwhile, the Beijing-based Bank of China said it was halting transactions from North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank.
The U.S. often spends more importing certain items from China than it does on oil, which is perceived as its most important import and the one that contributes most to the trade deficit.
As for Song's first invention, the rocking chair stroller, it was a hit right from the start and remains Goodbaby's bestselling product in China.
With the help of its tiny township government in Shunde county, its founders, Pan Ning and Wang Guoduan, turned it from the 42nd-largest fridge maker in 1984 into China's biggest in six years.
Christie's said 13% of the bids it fielded last year came from collectors in greater China.
Consider: Over the last 20 years China has boomed, taking it from a backwater to the world's second-biggest economy.
Importing apparel and footwear from China is not new news in the U.S., it reflects trade policy and has been going on for decades.
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While Honda has had success in using plants in markets where it sells cars like the U.S. and China many of its parts still come from Japan.
It also marks China's latest step to win construction projects in the West, broadening from the country's sizable role in big-ticket projects in Africa and other parts of the developing world.
As for the WTO itself, bringing China in would not only open up what is potentially the world's biggest consumer market, but it would also ensure that China does not stand aloof from the trading rules that govern commerce in the globalized new century.
It's being geared to become Vietnam's Tencent or Shanda, two runaway success stories from China's early start-ups.
Jie Teng, a 28-year-old business-school student from Hunan Province, China, is reluctant to use slang, because it's so easy to mess up.
Critics of Apple say that the company has run out of investment opportunities, while the smartphone and tablet market it dominates has peaked, and is seeing tougher competition from the likes of Korea's Samsung and China's Huawei.
China's navy in recent years has been taking part in antipiracy missions in the in the Gulf of Aden, for example, though it isn't likely the aircraft carrier will be participating in missions far from China's shores in the immediate term.
Even if they could, it does not make good business sense to export large numbers of vehicles from the U.S. to China because of the costly logistics involved.
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Two Chinese Olympians that made it into the top 10 last year following China's successful showing at the 2008 Beijing games dropped from the top ranks this year.
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