The Wider Environment
Changing Places
23/02/2006 14:24:49
From the International Herald Tribune, Howard French tells a tale of two cities:
Call it displacement, call it rise and fall, or trading places, or what have you, there is something hugely important taking place in
Sure, you can see this shift in the statistics, which show Chinese trade to be ever more critical for - 21 percent of Japanese total commerce, ahead of trade with the . Japanese trade with , meanwhile, is huge, but shrinking as a portion of the Chinese booming overall trade.
To truly appreciate what is going on, though, you've got to feel it, and that is best done through the lives of the two countries' second cities: