For more and more consumer goods, China is surpassing the United States as the world's biggest market - from cars to refrigerators to washing machines, even desktop computers.
The Chinese market is "on full tilt - booming is an understatement these days," said John Bonnell, the director of Asia vehicle forecasting at J.D. Power & Associates.
China is pulling ahead at this particular moment partly because Americans, debt-laden and worried about their jobs, are pulling back. After decades of gorging on consumption, Americans are saving. And the Chinese, whom economists thought were addicted to saving, are spending more.
Among China's 1.3 billion people, rising incomes are finally making large numbers of Chinese prosperous enough to make big-ticket purchases.
