Beijing or bust

China: Once-restrictive government now drives an economic powerhouse | Mark Bergin

By the summer of 2008, when television cameras and newspaper reporters flood Beijing for the Olympic Games, China's capital city will project an image of industrialized modernity. A $160 billion building project is underway, adding the equivalent of three Manhattans to the downtown skyline.

Such architectural decadence is no mere façade for the once radically isolationist nation. Three decades of market reforms have advanced the country to the early stages of a full-forced economic eruption. China recently leapfrogged Britain to become the world's fourth-largest economy, its gross domestic product (GDP) increasing 17 percent in 2005 to $2.25 trillion. In 30 years China's economy has quadrupled in size. When measured by purchasing power parity, China's global GDP rank climbs to No. 2.