Perched on a bluff above the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, the old city of Chongqing appears to some visitors to resemble the superstructure of a large ship. Situated more than 800 miles from the sea and more than 900 miles from the power center of Peking, Chongqing could easily have come to resemble a rusted hulk aground in an urban backwater, despite its brief fame as Chungking, China's capital city during the war with Japan. Forty years later, however, few other cities in China are undergoing such momentous change and rapid growth.
Virtually overnight, Chongqing has become the...