Beijing is crawling with motorcycle-mounted deliverymen, one sign of the rapid growth of China's service industries. Services grew 8.3 percent last year and for the first time generated more than half of gross domestic product, or 50.5 percent. Manufacturing rose only 6 percent. "If it hadn't been for the service sector, China's economy would be in a much worse state today," says Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics in Hong Kong. He notes that all kinds of services have expanded quickly in recent years.

For roughly three decades, China's booming economy has offered consumer product companies some of the world's greatest growth opportunities. China's economic slowdown and jittery markets have raised worries that this growth story is drawing to a close. In early November 2015, for example, the government lowered its official five-year annual GDP growth target to 6.5 percent, the slowest pace since the 2008–2009 global financial crisis.

Chinese media outlets are proudly announcing the nation's top 10 manufacturing achievements, with shipbuilding making it in at position 10.