At the end of April, a collective panic seized the Asia region. The wave of unease originated from China's central bank governor and the nation's premier, and spread faster than any microbe. The Chinese economy, they said, was expanding too rapidly. They wanted to tap the brakes and bring a few hyperactive industrial sectors under control.

Consensus has it any government-engineered slowdown will surely pass over technology, which is a long-term pillar of development and central to its modernization drive. "The government will still encourage growth in the telecom or electronics areas, so the meaning of the slowdown is not to slow down all areas, but to bring some balance to them," said Wayne Zhang, country manager for Integrated Device Technology (IDT), which sells into one of China's hottest growth sectors- communications.

GDP growth hit 9.1 percent in 2003. Sizzling first-quarter growth of 9.7 percent has made the nation's leaders nervous about burning up Asia's main engine of growth. Concerns abound whether the pace of development in China is sustainable and if the government has the ability to be a steward of capitalism.

Things aren't that bad, though. Indeed, for technology companies the opportunities are still getting better. "In short term, that is, within this year, the PC demand should not be affected," said Annie Chung, who tracks China for Gartner Dataquest (San Jose, Calif.). She believes most IT infrastructure build-outs commissioned by the government or government-linked entities, such as schools or state-controlled enterprises, will go ahead as planned.

In the jumble of numbers coming out of China, there are indications that consumer spending and disposable incomes are on the rise. That's something electronics firms will watch closely to see if it translates to their bottom lines. "If you are a consumer electronics company, you are going to do well," said Alex Mou, a regional technology analyst at Lehman Brothers. "That area continues to be very strong. If anything, it's been a driver and I don't see it slowing down at all."

Others share Mou's view. Pointing to the 2008 Olympics due in China, Ravi Agarwal, IDT's vice president of sales and longtime China observer, notes that demand will continue to rise. "I will be very surprised to see China slow down in these areas [telecom] over the next three to five years. Beyond that, I don't know."

The government is targeting 7 percent GDP growth this year, and for the next 16 years, until China is a $4 trillion economy. But the Asian Development Bank estimates China will overshoot, hitting 8.3 percent this year and 8.2 percent in 2005.

"We were calling for 9 to 11 percent before the talk of a slowdown, and we are still sticking to that," said Jim Walker, chief regional economist for Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia.

"I'm not at all convinced that they want to slow it down. They certainly want to control specific areas, but at the same time they are trying to create 14 million new jobs a year and they are trying to reorganize huge portions of the population every year and also modernize industry."

Any potential slowdown in China, even by a percent or two of GDP, is still hyper-drive for most countries, even in developing Asia. So the spigot on technology spending and investment will likely remain open, as China strives to regain some of its old glory.

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