In 2003 more than one quarter of the increase in world trade was due to China, whose international trade grew at almost 40% last year. The east Asian tigers (Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia) have been dwarfed by a Colossus which, however, has the vitality of a tiger.
In order to better gauge the growing role of China in the world economy, assuming that its high growth rate continues, we can calculate that the annual increment of its GDP in the years to come is as if a country of almost the size of Spain (the 9th biggest market economy worldwide) was being integrated into the world economy every year.