China's Globalizing Economy Ravages Border Forests Logging Industry Taps Unregulated Markets for Wood Chinese truckers carry logs from trees more than 100 years old from Burma into China. Sawdust floats through the air like pollen.
Fires crackle in roadside restaurants.
Pianma's tallest structure is a mountain of logs more than 50 feet high. And trucks weighed down with timber trundle through town daily. As such, Pianma is a vantage point to view the mounting appetite of the Chinese economic giant that is emerging and spreading its reach to the rest of Asia and the world. China is the biggest investor in Mongolia, for instance, and buys more than half its cashmere. China has challenged Russia for influence in several Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where Chinese investments vie with Moscow's and Chinese bicycles, electronic goods and other gadgets are pushing Russia's out.