--China’s share of world exports is lower than either that of Germany and the United States.

--The World Economic Forum places China 57th out of 116 countries in business competitiveness, twelve spots behind Ghana.

--In a study of growth competitiveness by the World Economic Forum, China ranked 49th, just behind Jordan and Botswana.

--While China runs a trade surplus with the United States, it runs a trade deficit with the rest of Asia. As Enright notes, "since the 1990s, China has been importing capital goods and advanced components from Japan and South Korea; other components from Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore; and still other components and subassemblies from other Southeast Asian countries."

--60% of China’s exports are produced by foreign-invested enterprises. Most of these enterprises, many owned wholly or in part by U.S. companies, do their research and development, design, distribution and sales, and some component manufacturing outside of China. Moreover, "substantial portions" of China’s exports are organized by international retailers such as Wal-Mart or trading companies.

--China’s role in many industries as an assembler of components from elsewhere for finished goods export place is the low margin spot on the supply chain. Enright observes that foreign firms who design and sell goods that Chinese enterprises manufacture often make more money on those goods than those Chinese companies do. "When lawmakers in the West warn against a flood of cheap Chinese merchandise," Enright observes, "they sometimes forget that this phenomenon is partly owned and orchestrated by Western businesses."

--Approximately three-fourths of China’s exports come from the Greater Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River delta, and Bohai regions—only 3% of its land mass. Only in recent years has infrastructure improved enough for manufacturers to locate in larger numbers away from these coastal regions.

"Internationally networked business systems have allowed China to export without having all the cards needed to be competitive." Even at that, Enright notes, China is competitive in a "complementary" sense in many industries; it needs knowledge, goods, and services imported from elsewhere to succeed.

For China’s economy to develop further, the country’s businesses have to develop their design, research, marketing, and financial prowess and infrastructure. Some of this development revolves around the need, which I alluded to earlier, to further deregulate the financial services industry.

There’s a lot of work to be done, and China’s leaders in government and business recognize as much.

To understand China from this side of the world, its important we comprehend what’s left to be done as well.