With the approaching holidays, there no shortage of reminders of the growing influence of China. Attentive shoppers notice that most items - from clothing and toys to appliances and Christmas decorations - are made in China.

China's growing economic power has been portrayed in recent news stories, most recently on Dec. 7 when Lenovo, China's leading

maker of personal computers, announced it was buying IBM's PC division. Analysts noted that no U.S. manufacturing jobs will be lost, because IBM already manufactures its PCs in China and other low-cost countries.

Computer components are just one of the many items with "Made in China" labels. In fact, it's fairly difficult to find any products in U.S. stores that are not made in China.

Wal-Mart recently reported that the value of its inventory produced in China hit $18 billion this year and is expected to grow at 20 percent a year for a few years. A Wal-Mart executive in China noted that if Wal-Mart were a country, its trade with China would rank eighth, ahead of Canada and Australia.

Of course, American consumers do benefit from Wal-Mart's low prices, earned, in large part, by utilizing low-cost manufacturing in China and elsewhere. But while U.S. consumers enjoy the budget-stretching benefits of low-cost goods at Wal-Mart and other major American retailers, they should understand and accept the impact of those low prices on the domestic job front. The hundreds of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs in textiles, electronics, furniture, machine tools and other areas that have left the U.S. are directly connected to American consumers' desire for low prices.

BusinessWeek magazine recently published a cover story on China, featuring the headline, "The three scariest words in U.S. industry: 'The China Price' "

On average, the article suggests, "the China price" is 30-50 percent less than the American manufactured price. The article goes on to point out that China's impact is especially powerful because of the 1.3 billion people that make up its domestic market, its low wage rates and its rapidly developing high-technology capabilities.

There are other low-wage countries around the world, but China is unique in combining low-wages with high technology. The country is now moving to develop its own home-grown technical innovations, and because its development is relatively new, the country's manufacturing facilities are generally newer than those in the U.S., providing yet another competitive advantage. Taken together, these factors form a powerful combination that the world is now recognizing.

By some estimates, if China's current rate of economic expansion continues for the next ten years, it will be the world's largest economy, followed by the U.S. and India.

The days of U.S. economic dominance are numbered.

While low wages are understood to be one of China's economic advantages, it is still stunning to discover the magnitude of that wage advantage. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics did some research this year and worked with official data available in China to estimate that the average cost of Chinese labor is about $0.64 an hour, compared with about $21 an hour in compensation for the average American manufacturing job.

China's rapid growth has already increased global consumption of raw materials and has contributed to rising steel and oil prices.

But as much of a threat as China represents to U.S. jobs, it is also an important market to U.S.-based multinationals who are already making and selling cell phones, cars and appliances in China. With 1.3 billion potential customers, U.S. corporations see China as a nearly unlimited growth market.

There is no single message to take from China's explosion onto the world economic stage. But everyone - from federal policy makers in Washington, D.C. to the shop-floor workers in Middle America - must be aware of what's happening.

After acknowledging the benefits to U.S. consumers, BusinessWeek asked "Can America afford the China price?" Though it's not clear what can be done to alter this trend, the question is worth pondering.