The Next Factory of the World

INTRODUCTION

From the Current Factory of the World to the Next Factory of the World

I remember the first time I rode in a car. Not many people in America can say that, cars being as prosaic as they are here. But this was in China, where I was born and where I lived until age six. Up to that moment, my conception of the Chinese word qiche consisted entirely of crowded buses onto which I was squeezed by my parents and heavy-duty trucks that children were definitely not allowed in. This car was something very different: there was no one in it I didn’t know, and everything was effortlessly clean. The leather of the seats was smooth and cool to the touch and gave off the calming, sterile smell of newness. I was used to having to clutch my parents’ ...