Look Out Boeing, NASA, Here Comes China

Jan. 19, 2011 -- President Hu struck a diplomatic tone with President Obama today, announcing $45 billion worth of deals that the White House said will support 235,000 U.S. jobs.

China agreed to purchase a wide variety of U.S. exports, everything from agricultural products and telecommunications equipment to engineering machinery and auto parts. The deal also includes a $19 billion contract with Boeing for 200 planes.

But even as China buys American, it is still hot on America's heels, expanding into frontiers dominated by the United States. It is designing its first commercial airplane, building its own space station and it brazenly tested its first stealth fighter jet when U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited the country last week.

"I think we're going to see a China that's going to spread its wings more, a China that is not going to be contained or pushed around," Beijing-based analyst Russell Leigh Moses told ABC News.

The statistics spell out China's rapid growth.

While state and municipal governments in the U.S. struggle with massive deficits, China is designing vast infrastructure upgrades.

It will begin construction this year on 16,000 miles of highway, boasting that in just five years the country will have more highways than America.

The Chinese also are beginning to lay 19,000 miles of railway lines, tracks that the country will need as 640 million people travel home for the spring festival in the next six weeks.

China not only is investing in physical infrastructure, but also in its people. Chinese children spend an average of 41 more days in school than their American counterparts, and Chinese students top the world in science, math and reading scores.