5. The brainpower behemoth

Manufacturing isn't the only thing that’s happening on a large scale in China. The number of college graduates has surged from one million in 1998 to 7.5 million in 2012, turning Chinese brainpower into another game-changing phenomenon. There is an explosion in research and development investment: in 1993, China accounted for just 2.2 percent of the world’s R&D spending; by 2009, the figure was 12.8 percent and well ahead of most European countries. In 2011, China surpassed Japan and is now second only to the US. China’s manufacturing giants have massive scale, deep pockets, and access to large numbers of skilled professionals. For example, Huawei has a workforce of 150,000 of whom 68,000 are in R&D; by way of contrast, Cisco has 66,000 employees, only 21,000 of whom work in R&D.