bussiness market watch

That's because the critical transition China is going through will affect our businesses and our livelihoods.

As I laid out in my last two columns, China is trying to move from being an export-oriented manufacturer to boosting domestic consumption, developing the country's interior, and becoming a more technologically advanced, high-value-added economy.

That will inevitably spur more conflicts with the U.S., Europe, and Japan about currency and trade issues and intellectual property. Some companies are seriously reevaluating their investments in China, which once looked like the Promised Land.

And American businesses and workers shouldn't expect much relief in the competitive pressures China is putting on prices and wages. China's transition is bound to be gradual, and in the meantime it needs to keep revving up its export machine to spur growth.

"I see the next 10 years as more driven by friction as the Chinese compete with the Europeans, Japanese, and Americans," says Christopher McNally, fellow of the East-West Center and an expert on China. Online Marketing Services Provider.

Friction indeed, epitomized by the recent rant by Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive officer of General Electric /quotes/comstock/13*!ge/quotes/nls/ge (GE 16.12, -0.03, -0.19%) , at a private dinner in Rome, according to the Financial Times. Read FT story about Immelt's outburst.

Immelt, of course, tried to walk that quote back, but he's not the only one complaining. We all know about Google Inc.'s /quotes/comstock/15*!goog/quotes/nls/goog (GOOG 484.85, -0.14, -0.03%) travails in China, and Microsoft Corp.'s /quotes/comstock/15*!msft/quotes/nls/msft (MSFT 25.81, -0.22, -0.85%) constant kvetching about software piracy there over the years.

Even the stodgy Germans are objecting -- and they're among the most successful exporters to China.

"Two of Germany's leading industrialists -- Jürgen Hambrecht, chairman of chemical giant BASF SE and Peter Löscher, chief executive of conglomerate Siemens AG /quotes/comstock/13*!si/quotes/nls/si (SI 97.39, +0.45, +0.46%) -- raised complaints about a range of Chinese policies toward foreign business during a public meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel," The Wall Street Journal reported.

"The concerns center on policies that foreign executives feel put them at a disadvantage against increasingly potent Chinese competitors, or compel them to transfer valuable technology to China," the Journal reported. Direct Marketing Services Provider.

One Japanese consortium led by Kawasaki Heavy Industries learned that lesson the hard way when it joined a Chinese company, Sifang, to manufacture "bullet trains," for which the Japanese are world-renowned.

But by two years into the six-year deal, "Sifang had 'digested' all the technology required for their manufacture," the FT reported.

Result: China had its bullet trains, and Sifang, not the Japanese companies that originally provided the technology, will likely reap the rewards of supplying China's rapidly growing high-speed rail network -- and those of other countries, too.

So, thank you very much. Now, go home.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to demonize China, which is acting thoroughly in its own self-interest. Along with honest innovation, theft of ideas is just part of capitalism. Media Marketing Agency.