During the last ten years China has become a full part of the globalised corporate economy. This is a return to normality for the country that dominated world trade for most of its history. On the basis of China's massive labour force, most analysts are predicting a similar role in the near future.

What is certain is that China is now the most popular home for tangible corporate investment, and its drive to build a modern economy is creating major demand for raw materials such as copper and steel, and fuels such as natural gas and oil. It also seems that China is now not only an attractive area for multinational corporations' operations, but has now given birth to several home grown multinationals of its own. These have been making waves recently with the buy out of UK car manufacturer MG Rover by Nanjing Automotive, and by the contentious bid by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) for US oil company Unocal. Such multi-billion-dollar deals are indications that China, economically colonised by European and US companies between the early 19th century and 1949 (See page 12, 'HSBC'), is emerging as a major player in its own right. What this also means is the development of a Chinese corporate elite who are driving the process of industrialisation at the expense of the peasants and urban workers. This elite is largely concentrated in the eastern cities, such as Shanghai and Hangzhou; their wealth depends on a steady flow of immigrant labour from China's western hinterland, which keeps down labour costs and makes China's corporations competitive in the world market. China like many other countries is undergoing an accelerated version the industrialisation that happened in the UK between 1750-1900 -- and with the associated social repercussions. Not only are millions of people swelling the cities every year, but million of the new urban middle class are adopting 'Western' levels of wealth, and consumption in their. This is having a knock-on impact on the world economy, as global corporations queue up to meet the needs of this new market. As the WWF have observed, a major impact is the rocketing demand for meat and dairy products in South East Asia as a whole, which results in corporations turning yet more land in South America over to cattle farming and animal feed plantations (see page 11, 'Panda-ing to the soya barons?'). All of the above reasons make China a pressing and vital area for corporate research and understanding amongst activists.
"'China's Corporate Babies', page 4