HONG KONG — With her eye-catching pearl earrings and dazzling gold bracelets, Shanghai housewife Wu Ping personifies the bright side of Asia's economic future.
Wu is one of a growing number of mainland Chinese tourists flooding into Hong Kong after an easing of visa restrictions in recent weeks. With thick wallets and liberal spending habits, they are helping revive the territory's sagging economic fortunes.
"I have no budget for this trip," she said, pausing to talk with a reporter as she browsed through racks of women's clothing at a fashionable department store on her first day in Hong Kong. "If I like it, I'll buy it."
On a grander scale, China as a nation is making its own impact in countries throughout East and Southeast Asia as it shops in ever greater quantities for imports needed to sustain its phenomenal growth. Undeterred by slowdowns elsewhere and unfazed by the outbreak of pneumonia-like SARS last spring, which crippled many economies in Asia, China's explosive expansion hasn't missed a step.
Asia-based economists estimate that China's spending on capital investment alone is running more than 30% above last year's rate, and the country's growing appetite for imports is a key factor driving a stronger-than-expected rebound in nations throughout much of East and Southeast Asia.
"China is now a source of strength for everyone in the region," said Tim Condon, chief Asia economist for ING Financial Markets in Hong Kong.
The perception of China as a locomotive for growth may seem odd to Americans far more familiar with the accusations that cheap Chinese imports are taking their jobs. U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow is expected to press China on that issue when he visits Beijing this week, and is reportedly ready to ask China to revalue its currency as a remedy.
The reason for the different views is apparent.
Whereas China has a trade surplus of more than $100 billion with the United States, it now buys more goods than it sells in its trade with Asian nations.
Michael Kurtz, Asian strategist for investment bank Bear Stearns, noted, for example, that South Korea's trade surplus with China has moved steadily upward from about $500 million to $800 million per month over the last 18 months as newly rich consumers in China's fast-expanding moneyed class snap up consumer electronics made in South Korea.
"China is now huge for consumer electronics as well as raw materials and other basic goods from the region," Kurtz said.
