English: Logo of the People’s Daily 中文: 人民日报题字 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
China leading and authoritative newspaper, the People’s Daily, reports that China’s first large passenger plane rolled off the assembly line on Monday in Shanghai. This makes aviation history in China and marks a breakthrough in the country’s high-end manufacturing. The article argued that the rollout of the first C919 aircraft must be congratulated as Chinese people have long-dreamed of having such a domestic-made plane, even though making it met many challenges.
Source: China’s domestic airliner deserves salute – People’s Daily Online
This is article highlights how China’s industry is changing from low-cost to high value-added production, deploying latest technology and highly skilled workforce. There are too many stories and focus on China’s risks but not her opportunities.
I still see a soft landing for China’s massive tranformation from a low-cost export economy to services and higher value-added industries.
Thoughts?
Dr Alf's Blog 
This interesting post from Dr Alf is representative of what the Chinese are doing at great speed.
650 million people are being taught English, the brightest students are being required to get a degree in China and then get another one in a Western university, often an MBA in international business. When they move into the world of work, they are often required to learn things like software development and be trained by Carnegie Mellon in American English for 12 hours a day with no Mandarin spoken until the day has ended.
Targets for Chinese industry are benchmarked against industries in those countries which are market leaders. Thus, IT/BPO and related software development has a 60% global market share held by India.
China has 20% of this global market but intends to catch up with India within 20 years of 2011 and surpass it by 2032.
Old manufacturing industries are, as we speak, being automated and more practically minded and entrepreneurially minded citizens are encouraged to “GO OUT” and settle overseas, so that the impact on home employment levels is minimised and so that this diaspora can send money home to support elderly relatives.
People in the West are not told much about this in the media and underestimate what the Chinese are doing which is quietly building up shareholdings in companies which own Western strategic assets such as ports, roads, construction companies like Balfour Beatty, transportation, airport management companies, power companies, water companies and car manufacturers.
The day will come when many Britons, Americans, Australians and Europeans find themselves working for the Chinese but that realisation has not yet dawned on our respective politicians or the general public.