Just where all that investment is going has been very much on display for frequent visitors to China, particularly in Shanghai. In the 1990s, there was so much construction going on that the city looked different from month to month. "If you were away for six months, the city never looked the same," says Weingrod, who travels often to China. "You couldn't get your bearings based on where you saw the buildings, because the buildings you remembered from last time were often blocked out by new ones."


GROWING PAINS
It's not difficult to find people who have legitimate concerns about China's ascendance. Any U.S. congressman whose district has seen a factory close down and move operations to lower-cost China is bound to ­express concerns about job losses, as are leaders in other traditionally cheap manufacturing centers, like Mexico, which has also lost considerable business to Asia. Worries about religious and political freedom - after all, the country is still ruled by the Communist Party, which squelches dissent and views that it deems threatening - as well as China's willingness to forcefully assert its claimed sovereignty over Taiwan, are but a few of many major issues.

But it's not just foreigners who worry about where China is headed and how its development will progress. The Chinese themselves are well aware of the challenges they face as they try to continue the blistering growth; in fact, in their latest five-year plan, the Chinese set themselves the goal of boosting the nation's gross domestic product by 45 percent by 2010. "Any American policy-maker who actually knew what the agenda of China's leaders was in terms of the problems they face every morning when they get up probably wouldn't have the courage to get out of bed," says Lampton.