The problem with the "service economy" concept is that it is the sort of thing that is most easily outsourced, at least for things like phone support, programming, electrical engineering, anything with data that can be transmitted over the internet, etc. Most of that is going to India, not China, though, but it's been a big hit for US high tech professionals.
I heard a NPR radio show the other day when a fellow who was studying outsourcing to China described what he saw there. Apparently it is not unusual in a Chinese factory to have one person actually doing some work, and another ten people standing around watching or swatting flies. Apparently labor is so cheap there that they can do this and still beat out western shops. I have also heard that it is also not unusual for the entire workforce of a factory servicing western contracts to be fired and a completely new workforce to be brought in, at the first hint of labor unrest. Lord knows what happens to those who've been fired. But it's a bit amazing to me that our politicians and business people haven't raised more than a murmur over the human rights abuses that seem to be rampant in Chinese industry, as well as the complete lack of democracy there. Espeically when many of them support our invading a country that never attacked us and sending the death toll there soaring, supposedly to rectify human rights abuses and bring democracy to the region.
