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Power: Four of China's five major carriers have ordered GE engines for their boeing fleets. | photograph by Roy Zipstein

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China's Airport Boom

Perhaps GE's most important cultural exchange in the United States occurs at its famous Crotonville leadership center in Ossining, New York. Every year, GE nominates 40 senior executives from various industries in China -- subject to the approval of China's Central Organizational Department -- to attend one- to three-week sessions. "These are the senior-most people who determine who is going to run which state-owned enterprise, who's going to run the province, who's going to be mayor of the city," says Bertamini. These sessions give GE the opportunity to build close relationships with key decision makers in areas that play to the company's portfolio. For example, in 2003, GE invited 22 executives from Baosteel, the sixth largest steel producer in the world. In the following years, GE built a combined cycle power plant and a water reuse facility and sold lighting and power distribution to Baosteel.

There's one final leverage point that GE uses to propel its aviation business and infrastructure products in China: the political pressure on China to buy more American-made goods. Two years ago, GE inked a memorandum of understanding with China's Ministry of Foreign Commerce to cooperate in increasing trade flow between the United States and China. "Many of our projects are big-ticket items," Bertamini says, "which is important when you have such a big [trade] deficit."

As CEO Immelt argues, "We are seeing our exports to China helping the U.S. economy." And, of course, helping advance GE's future.