P.T. Black, a lifestyle research consultant in Shanghai, listed what he sees as "the eight most common misunderstandings about China" in an interesting column published in our sister publication AdAgeChina.

The top item on his list was "China is America in the '50s (or Japan in the '80s, or Mexico in the '90s or ...)." Black argued: "Everybody loves a good historic analogy, but China is too big, too complex and too thoroughly integrated with the rest of the world. The country's consumer culture is leapfrogging its own unique path."

That reminded me of some heated discussion at the US-China Global Brand Summit I was invited to attend last fall. An American consultant with quite a bit of China experience stated that China is America in the '90s, which doesn't sound so bad, especially considering the relatively slow growth in the U.S. in the past two decades.

Still, the comment was challenged by a Chinese professor from Beijing University, who claimed that the time element is tricky in the comparative analysis of two nations. It makes better sense to compare snapshots of two countries at the same point in time.

That argument is valid in the sense that China currently has so many characteristics that the U.S. didn't have in the '90s or '50s, such as the 384 million Internet users, and a 50 percent penetration rate of mobile phones.

As Black rightly alluded, China's consumers are catching up with their peers in the West. From electronics to high fashion to luxury cars, the savvy and sophisticated Chinese wealthy are at the very forefront of global consumer trends. Chinese children are growing up watching Sesame Street, Harry Potter and American Idol, while their grandparents may still have a collection of Mao's Little Red Book.

The landscape is just as complex and diverse in manufacturing. State-of-art factories and very dated technologies co-exist in peace, serving different sections of the vast spectrum of global consumers.

No matter whether a Chinese company exports to America or Africa, making iPhones or soap boxes, as long as it makes money, it will continue to exist and contribute to the Chinese economy. That's why China is unique.