2007-11-17, China's View of Wal-Mart: Big Partner 1

To see first-hand how the promise of a vast new market for America was playing out. I headed for China and the heart of its new industrial revolution, Shenzhen, south China's miracle city. Twenty years ago, this was all rice fields. Today, it's a sophisticated city of seven million. Its astonishing rise orchestrated by China's leaders and ignited by a Chinese currency devaluation in the mid¹ 90s, that dramatically lowered its export prices. It's the opening of China. China is a communist country and for the longest time, we had closed doors. And when they opened up to western businesses, the floodgates opened basically and it's something that you just can't stop.

The boom seemed endless. North of Shenzhen, I found an entrepreneur, who was among the first to spot opportunity in the new China.

Well, these are the products we make, um, this gives you some idea of ...

Australian Donald Hey came to south China twenty years ago.

I was in this part of the world and I could see, I saw the, the cheap products come out of Japan. And I saw then that market went to Korea and then it went to Taiwan. And I said hold it, hold it, hold it, the next one is China. Igotta get here.

The backbone² of China's new industrial might is the flood of young Chinese pouring into this industrial province. An area no bigger than Missouri, now teeming³ with more than forty million migrant workers. They come to work and live at the factories. At Hay's company Hayco, they make a hundred dollars a month or about fifty cents an hour. Other companies pay as little as 25 or 30 cents an hour. They want to work. They want to earn the money. They want to get forward. And they will do anything to move forward.

Today, Hayco supplies electric toothbrushes and home cleaning products to big American companies like 3M, P&G and Wal-Mart. What's happened is the world has come here as a marketplace. It's like a supermarket for manufacturing today. And the quality is up to world standards a long way past world standards. And that's just what's happened in southern China.

All across the region, I saw evidence of the mass corporate⁴ migration⁵ into China. Highways lined with factories like airport hangers⁶. Hundreds of billions of dollars in western investment have poured into China in the past twenty years. And Wal-mart is here too. It has 35 supercenters in China. And behind one of them here in Shenzhen, I found Wal-mart's global procurement⁷ center, a huge buying operation tapping directly into China's new workshop of the world.

I interviewed people in Wal-mart's global procurement center in Shenzhen. And I asked them about the total number of Wal-mart suppliers. And I was told that Wal-Mart has 6000 global suppliers. 80% of those suppliers are in China.

1 mid   

adj.中央的，中间的

参考例句：

• Our mid-term exam is pending.我们就要期中考试了。
• He switched over to teaching in mid-career.他在而立之年转入教学工作。

2 backbone   

n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气

参考例句：

• The Chinese people have backbone.中国人民有骨气。
• The backbone is an articulate structure.脊椎骨是一种关节相连的结构。

3 teeming   

adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注

参考例句：

• The rain was teeming down. 大雨倾盆而下。
• the teeming streets of the city 熙熙攘攘的城市街道

4 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

5 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

6 hangers   

n.衣架( hanger的名词复数 )；挂耳

参考例句：

• The singer was surrounded by the usual crowd of lackeys and hangers on. 那个歌手让那帮总是溜须拍马、前呼後拥的人给围住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I want to put some of my good hangers in Grandpa's closet. 我想在爷爷的衣橱放几个好的衣架。 来自辞典例句

7 procurement   

n.采购；获得

参考例句：

• He is in charge of the procurement of materials.他负责物资的采购。
• More and more,human food procurement came to have a dominant effect on their evolution.人类获取食物愈来愈显著地影响到人类的进化。