Building a Global Empire, The Chinese Way

“The Sleeping Giant is awake,” declares ABC reporter Diane Sawyer, who's reporting from Shanghai this week.

Sawyer is in China examining the rapid transformation of the largest emerging economy in the world – an economy growing at the rate of 10 percent a year. Sawyer is on a hunt for some answers about China's rapid growth -- what it means for the American economy and how the government managed to pull off such a feat in a little more than two decades.

Everyday for every baby born in the United States, almost four babies will be born in China… The Chinese say that they can build a supper highway in the time it takes to get a permit and paper work done in the U.S. Last week 200 workers in unison built a 15-story hotel in six days... By the end of next year the train from Beijing to Shanghai will take four hours. That’s about the distance from New York to Atlanta, which takes Americans 18 hours.

But, growth like this comes at a cost. According to Sawyer, “[a] quarter of the
water in the country is unsafe. [China is] the worlds worst polluters and that pollution
contributes to 70 percent of cancer deaths.” China's growth also hasn't managed to pull all its people out of poverty... Yet. “700 million people still live in poverty in China surviving on less than $2 a day,” reports Sawyer.

Check out Diane Sawyers report in this video belowand get an inside look at the growing polarities as Diane Sawyer does China by the Numbers.