The Australian Financial Review's Shanghai correspondents filed a story that appears today under that heading (paywalled):

Eddy Lam has been making shoes for more than 30 years and selling them to the rest of the world. Now he senses a change under way.

Lam wants to start importing as well. The Chinese consumer has arrived, according to Lam. And they want better quality shoes. Not just foreign-branded shoes, but shoes crafted outside China. So Lam is on a hunt for joint venturers in Australia, Italy and Spain.

It may be the equivalent of taking coals to Newcastle. China manufactures 80 per cent of the world's shoes. But Lam is convinced he is on to something big.

If Lam is right, and there are many respected economists who share similar views, the China story is on the cusp of a change. It is still positive for commodity demand, the Australian resources sector, the Australian economy and the dollar. But the narrative is different.

The change - and why it is occurring now - is all about critical mass. It took a while, several years in fact, for the resources demand from China to gain traction and to influence the world price for commodities. It wasn't until 2004 that the world really sat up and noticed China, and grasped the significance of its rapid growth for the rest of the global economy.

That year was a watershed for commodity prices - when China's absolute level of demand had built up to a point where it became the primary driver of economic growth.

"China is the best consumption story in the world right now," says China macro stragetist for CLSA, Andy Rothman.

For the government in Beijing, this means that it can pare back investment spending, which it wants to do, and let the consumer take up the slack. [...]

The article does go one to note that some observers believe that the current buoyancy is still just the result of the Chinese government stimulus, rather than systemic economic change. I'll watch for future reports on how many shoes Eddie Lam imports and manages to profitably sell.

It would indeed be good news for the world economy. It might still kill us in terms of ecology but, at least, it gives us a shot at balancing the accounts...

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