China is now the world's largest automotive manurfacturer

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/world/140590/the_hummer%3A_america%27s_favorite_wasteful_toy_has_moved_to_the_land_of_mao/

It's a brave new car world we now live in. GM, a remnant of its former self, is essentially owned by the U.S. government, Chrysler is coming under Italian control, and both Jaguar and Land Rover are in the hands of India's Tata Motors.

So, who's going to be King of the Highway in the good ol' USA? Maybe Geely. Gee-who? Geely Automobile, one of China's largest auto manufacturers. Along with such other Chinese giants as BYD and Chery Automobile, Geely has big designs on the American market. Never heard of them? Well, get ready to greet the ascendant star in the vehicular universe: China.

Here's a surprising fact to ponder: This year, it's projected that China will overtake Japan as the world's largest automobile producer. It already tops U.S. carmakers in sales.

As the chairman of Daimler, Germany's top auto company, bluntly acknowledged in January, "The center of gravity is moving eastward." Well, the East is also moving westward, as some of China's largest companies expect to start putting their cars into the U.S. market as early as a year from now. Also, as the Hummer purchase shows, Chinese executives have been kicking the tires of Detroit's ailing companies, shopping for bargains.

China's sudden surge to the top is no accident. While American auto honchos and economic policymakers stayed mired for years in the old business model of ever-bigger, expensive, fuel-gulping, unreliable vehicles, China's industrial and political leaders have been planning for and investing in smaller, well-built, fuel-sipping cars.

Part of its plan was to lure such foreign makers as GM into joint ventures. The foreigners, seeking the short-term gain of China's cheap labor, willingly delivered their technology and managerial know-how to the Chinese, who used both to modernize their own industry and leapfrog into mass production for both domestic and export markets. Indeed, with the Hummer purchase, China gets all the technology, a Western dealership network and a developed brand.