Time Running Out on China's Boom

China's economy grew 10.7% in 2006, the fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth and the highest growth rate since the 10.9% recorded in 1995.

And the Chinese economy did it last year without even breaking a sweat: Inflation, a sign of potential overheating, came in at a core rate of just 1.5%.

That's impressive enough, but if you take a slightly longer view, China's record is even more amazing. No major economy in the past 30 years has grown at the speed of China's, The New York Times noted in its story on China's latest economic performance, and no other country has been able to do it year after year for over a decade.

Does that make you even a little bit curious about how China did it? It should. The usual explanations you see -- that this growth rate is the result of unleashing market forces in a country of 1.3 billion hardworking, traditionally frugal and often intensely driven people -- do capture part of the story. But only part. ...