I beleive China is consuming 5%. That is up from almost nothing ten years ago. Right now, both Taiwan and Japan are investing huge sums in building industrial capacity in China, and this figure is expected to double. It is the exact opposite of what is happening in the US. Both countries are islands that have a ton of money, but little room for heavy industry, and the fact that Chinese labor is the cheapest on earth certainly makes it appealing. I'll try to get a graph on that.

The situation in Russia is based on the fact that Russians still have a sneaking suspicion that profit is evil. The government simply walked in one day, arrested the tycoon who built a successful company for tax evasion, declared a huge tax bill was owed, and declared the company bankrupt. Obviously, it is going to put a huge damper on foriegn investment. The situation there changes daily, and it is at the heart of all these matters. If China cannot get cheap oil from Russia, then oil prices will inccrease - they can bid high prices for Arabian oil, simply because they can offset it by lower labor rates, something we cannot do. General Motors is going to be in a hell of a bind for example.