Nowadays China is one of the world's top exporters and is attracting record amounts of foreign investment. In turn, it is investing billions of dollars abroad.
The collapse in international export markets that accompanied the global financial crisis of 2009 initially hit China hard, but its economy was among the first in the world to rebound, quickly returning to growth.
As a member of the World Trade Organization, China benefits from access to foreign markets. But relations with trading partners have been strained over China's huge trade surplus and the piracy of goods. The former has led to demands for Beijing to raise the value of its currency, which would make Chinese goods more expensive for foreign buyers and possibly hold back exports.
Some Chinese fear that the rise of private enterprise and the demise of state-run industries carries heavy social costs such as unemployment and instability.
Moreover, the fast-growing economy has fueled the demand for energy. China is the largest oil consumer after the US, and the world's biggest producer and consumer of coal. It spends billions of dollars in pursuit of foreign energy supplies. There has been a massive investment in hydro-power, including the $25bn Three Gorges Dam project
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