Ten years ago China's endless supply of cheap labor produced an endless supply of cheap (and often shoddy) products: toys and textiles and not a lot else. Today China still makes all that stuff--but a lot more besides. Drive through the now famous Pudong industrial zone in Shanghai, and you'll find spanking-new factories for as far as the eye can see.

China's emergence as a reliable, stable producer of high-value, technologically sophisticated products will rewrite the economics of a wide range of manufacturing industries, not just those that are labor intensive (such as toys and textiles). In fact, that process is already well under way. >>details