GUANGZHOU, China — China's ascent as a modern trading power began here on the banks of the murky Pearl River, where British merchants traded silver for Chinese tea and silk — then brought in opium to get their silver back.
Despite wars, foreign occupation and violent political upheavals, Guangzhou — formerly known as Canton — has been trading ever since.
And the biggest commercial event in town is a twice-annual trade fair that during Chairman Mao Zedong's day was basically the outside world's only chance to meet with Chinese manufacturers.
Although the rest of China has opened up, giving businesses many more avenues to pursue, the Guangzhou fairs still account for one-fifth of China's exports, and organizers are hoping for a resurgence as the economy opens further as part of the World Trade Organization.
China's WTO membership will bring more foreign goods and services into the mainland, providing more competition for domestic manufacturers, who in turn are hunting for new customers for their exports.
Gao Jianwei, a trader for Nanjing Pole Feather and Down Products Co. Ltd., was trying to lure visitors to his booth full of quilts, parkas and other down products in the back of a 14-building exhibition center.
"Japan was our biggest market," Gao said. "It's not so great now, and we need to find others as well."
To give the exporters more space and a better chance of being seen, organizers split this year's fair into two six-day sessions. More than 110,000 foreign buyers and 8,400 Chinese businesses participated, offering some 100,000 different products.
The traders here are still dealing in tea, and simple commodities like garlic bulbs.
But reflecting China's ascent up the global manufacturing ladder, some offer sophisticated medical instruments, flat-panel computer and television screens and robotic toys.
And there's a lot in between.
Fairgoers chose from a mind-boggling abundance and variety of items: ice shavers, beaded ball gowns, dentist chairs, hacksaws, bathroom scales, chemicals, pitchforks, glue guns, paint rollers, machetes, microwaves, kids pajamas, pickled plums.
WTO membership means Chinese now can sell at the lowest available tariff rates to many more countries than in the past, and a large share of the buyers were from those developing countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
"We're still a bit behind the U.S., but there are buyers from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Latin America who will be satisfied with our products and happy with our lower prices," said Li Lichuan, a marketing executive with the Nanjing Foreign Economic and Trade Development Co. Ltd.
Li was offering infant incubators, stethoscopes and other medical equipment.
Founded in 1957, the Guangzhou fair originally lasted a month and was virtually the only chance foreign businessmen had to haggle directly with Chinese suppliers.
Mao's portrait hung at the entrance, back in the days when trade accounted for less than a tenth of China's economic activity. It now generates about a third.
The fair's importance has diminished with the lifting of foreign trade restrictions and the advent of the Internet.
"It's still a good first-timer's fair, a place to come and make initial contacts to be followed up later," said John Kamm, a former trader who began attending the fair in 1976.
Manufacturers say the gargantuan industrial bazaar is an event they can't afford to miss. State-run media say the fair still generates about one-third of China's export business.
"We simply have to be here, even if the fair itself isn't such an important source of business for us," said Brook Xia of Jiangsu Sunshine Group, China's biggest maker of worsted woolens and business suits.
And some entrepreneurs say they still do lots of business here.
Zhao Ping, whose company based in the eastern port city of Ningbo makes roller-skate "flying" shoes, motorized scooters and other sports accessories, was beaming over orders from American, Japanese and Korean buyers.
Competition spilled onto the sidewalks, where young women stood shoulder to shoulder advertising interpreting services and name cards — printed in just two hours.
Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong, the province adjacent to Hong Kong that since the late 1970s has pioneered China's dealings with the world as overseas Chinese poured billions of dollars back into their homeland.
It's been a trading port for more than 2,000 years, but was opened to the West in a big way with the signing of the Treaty of Tianjin in 1858, when the British won a trading concession. Remnants of the days of empire remain on Shamian, a shaded island of calm streets and turn-of-the-century mansions on the bustling Pearl River.
The 73 million Cantonese, and some 13 million more migrant laborers, generated a GDP of 1.056 trillion yuan ($127.18 billion) in 2001 — about one-tenth of China's total.
Some outside experts say the statistics coming from the mainland can be unreliable, but don't tell that to some of the merchants at the fair. Some are too busy counting their new orders.
"Every year, it just gets better. This year, we have three booths, next year, I'll have four," said Li Jing Hong, business manager for Guangdong Chenghai Import and Export Co., a silverware exporter.