Abstract
The Chinese economy has grown at an annual average of around 10 per cent during the last 25 years. 400 million people out of its huge population of 1.3 billion rose above the poverty level (one dollar a day) during 1997–2002.1 Downtown Shanghai or Beijing have areas so luxurious that they are unrivalled in the world. China somehow does not fit the picture of an average developing country. In purchasing power terms, it is already said to be the second largest economy in the world, and bound to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy in the near future. Foreign direct investment in China during recent years almost equalled investment in the US. It is the only ‘developing’ country that holds a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and which has enough technological capacity to send astronauts (or taikonauts as the Chinese call them) into space.