 "china steel")
China was leaving behind decades of deep poverty when Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping flew to Japan in 1978 to seal a historic peace treaty between the two nations. Mr. Deng’s trip featured a lower-key, but equally important visit—to a state-of-the-art plant owned by Nippon Steel Corp.
The Japanese steel mill was seen as the model for a manufacturing beachhead China wanted to build in Shanghai, called Baosteel. It was the linchpin of plans to transform China’s agrarian economy into an industrial powerhouse.
Baosteel’s initial price tag was steep, $6 billion, equal to 36 times China’s foreign-exchange reserves at the time. Mr. Deng’s
