China is emerging as a major world economic power, but what lies behind the booming growth of the twenty-first century? What are the roots and true character of this great civilization? Back in the 1970s, we were asking much the same questions of Japan-a country which was and still is a great deal more accessible to Westerners; but now Japan has been overtaken by the sheer size and numbers involved in the growth of China. But just as was evident in Japan, ancient cultures and customs exist alongside the rapid embrace of Western business practices although, unlike Japan, China is still not a democracy as we know it and is tightly regulated by a Communist government with a poor record of human rights.
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