American Public Media's Marketplace® radio program broadcast two weeks of stories live from China last month, and I think I learned more about how business is done (as well as the future of capitalism) in China than from all the other conference speakers I've heard over the past 10 years. That's saying a lot, and I suggest going to www.marketplace.org to check out their dozens of reports from a half-dozen locations.

We've all read the stories, and I know many of your companies are and will continue to be negatively impacted by competition from the Chinese. That's what made two of the final Marketplace reports so interesting. Their theme: So, should we be afraid of China?

On the one hand, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich commented how Americans like to create nemeses. In the 1970s, it was Japan; today, it's terrorism. "As China grows and becomes...in 20 or 30 years, the largest economy in the world," Reich said, "I think that China may become our nemesis." He also pointed out that while we understand the kind of capitalism that's emerging in China, it's different from American capitalism and is teamed with a tremendous amount of national pride about it. "And that makes us a little nervous." Reich wrapped up, "With economic power comes political power, and a lot of discretion [for China] to do things that we may not like."

Conversely, James McGregor, author of One Billion Customers, said we should be more afraid of ourselves. Now in our third generation of post-WWII wealth, Americans live on loans and have a negative savings rate. In China, economic development is a focus of national unity, and America just doesn't seem like the ambitioius, hungry-for-success nation it once was, he said. We can learn from the Chinese, who save more than they spend and place a supreme value on education, McGregor concludes, "before we choke on our own complacency and over-consumption."

Now, if you feel energized to spark your company's foreign sales, seriously consider attending the Flexible Packaging Association's "Competing Internationally" annual meeting next month. Presenters will examine various strategies, significant changes in the energy markets key to flex-pack converters, how companies large and small can compete on a multinational level, and the driving forces behind trade policies, international costs and market differences.