LAYOUT > Approximately 3,600,000 sq miles. Roughly the size and shape of the United States; runs 2,300 miles from Manchuria near the Artic Circle down to tropical Canton. China is somewhat isolated by the arid, northwestern Mongolian plains, the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau to the west, the river gorges of Burma to the south and the Pacific Ocean.

POPULATION > One fifth of the world lives there and the birth rate is twice the death rate resulting in an increase of 12 million each year. About 90% are Han Chinese and speak Mandarin while the remaining 10% consists of more than 55 ethnic minorities, among them, Mongols, Tibetans, Muslims and Uighurs, distributed throughout the far reaches.

July 2003

In China, Macs are often viewed as expensive desktop publishing machines. A price-conscious consumer can put together a PC from scratch for about half the cost of a pre-assembled iMac. However, devout Mac users persist in small cadres in the major cities because Apple has reputation throughout the world, if not for convenience, then for quality and style.

China is changing fast. Its leaders have talked of modernizing for two decades, but the distinction between that and westernizing is increasingly difficult to make. It has been gradually adopting western tools and experimenting with free market capitalism in Special Economic Zones, attempting to limit the role of the CCP in local governance and crack down on corruption to promote efficiency. Its consumer market is vast and full of potential and many companies are starting to count on it for profits.

But the CCP has traditionally cracked down on something else too, threats to its power, and as private wealth increases and accumulates influence it will need to be kept in check, something the CCP has shown itself willing to do forcefully in the past.

China is emerging as an economic giant and meeting the goals for the Four Modernizations, begun 25 years ago to bring it up to speed with the rest of the modern industrial world. To set the mood, Deng Xiaoping, then deputy premier and now deceased, famously declared: "To get rich is glorious." In the new era of Chinese socialism, the individual must be allowed to prosper before prosperity for all can be achieved. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Well, maybe not, that remains to be seen.

These efforts to modernize are driving urbanization and it is in the fast growing east coast cities that you are going to find most Mac users. But that hardly narrows things down since something like ten percent of the world now lives there.

Apple has less than 1% of the PC market (but 60% of the desktop publishing market) but could be seeing masses of switchers if the enthusiasm found in local Mac user groups (MUGs) spreads, and as Apple attempts to bolster its presence in the education and digital video markets; goals it is pursuing through its resellers.