Big China

I recently returned from two weeks in Hong Kong and China.  I came away with a renewed respect for China, its export engine, its people and its sheer beauty.  I also came away with an uneasy feeling.  Let me explain:

The drive from Hong Kong into China is a beautiful, impressive and boisterous one.  As I was driven out of Kowloon I passed Hong Kong’s powerful and seamless port infrastructure which was laid out next to ultra modern, pothole free highways and tunnels that made this New Yorker envious.   
   

As I made my way across the border, I was certainly not alone.  Thousands and thousands of cars were descending upon and funneling through the border checkpoint and into a China that continues to dumbfound with its growth.  As one of my companions informed me, frequent visitors have to get their Tom Toms and other GPS devices updated every six months in order to keep up with road systems that seem to be growing as you drive on them.

Once in China, it is astounding to experience the sheer density in the number of factories that has sprung up in this area.  And it’s not just the factories; there are design studios, tool makers, packagers and anything else you can imagine that supports this mega toy export machine. 

At this point in time, there is no single country or group of countries in the world that could take over even a small part of this capacity.  If China catches a cold the rest of the world not only gets pneumonia, it has a heart attack and a stroke.

More on that in my next blog.