China is so often thought of as the World’s Fac­tory, it’s easy to for­get they’re also a major, and grow­ing, global pur­chas­ing force; pro­duc­ing all those inex­pen­sive prod­ucts and items of cloth­ing has swelled their income by amounts that might seem small to wealthy West­ern nations, but would have been unimag­in­able to the Chi­nese cit­i­zen of two gen­er­a­tions ago. Japan, on the other hand, is largely rec­og­nized as pro­duc­ing sophis­ti­cated, high-quality, rel­a­tively expen­sive goods.