TO CATCHA glimpse of China’s industrial heft, visit Changxing Island in the country’s north-east. There, jutting into the Bohai Sea, is one piece of the machine: a specialised petrochemical plant that opened in 2012 and has grown relentlessly ever since.
It represents, in condensed form, the powerful mixture that has fuelled China’s dominance of global manufacturing: policy directives, state support, local incentives and restless entrepreneurs.
