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The People’s Republic of China, the most populous country and third largest in the world, was once the home of a centrally planned economic system; a system that held the country for decades past in an economic and global market limbo. But now, with China’s attempts to create its new “socialist market economy,� it is quickly becoming one of the world’s fastest growing economies and is currently the world’s third largest. It is with this economic surge that China has so rapidly been able to expand its presence within the global market.

China’s economic history is very similar to its economic present as for as its intra-country economic commodities. About sixty percent of China’s work force is agricultural, although only about fifteen percent of its land surface is suitable for farming and agriculture composes only twenty-five percent of China’s gross domestic product. Its principal agricultural crops include rice, wheat, corn, millet, barley, and kaoliang, a form of sorghum. Other valuable crops include peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans, cotton, tobacco, and tea. Also important to China’s economy is the raising of hogs, poultry, and marine fishing. Besides its strength in agricultural products, China is also one of the world’s leading producers of minerals. Coal, the most abundant mineral produced in China, is also its principal energy source. China’s reputation as a major importer of petroleum has been pushed aside in recent years, though, as they are now the world’s fifth ranked oil producer. Both coal and petroleum have become very important sources of foreign exchange for the country. China also produces vast deposits of iron, tin, mercury, aluminum, salt, gold, and uranium. With the plentitude of economic resources in China, it is easy to see why it is one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

China’s economy is not without fault, though. Although 1997 was an excellent...