economy - 'China overtakes US as major high-tech supplier'

China will be a bigger supplier of IT-products than the US over 2004, according to the International Herald Tribune, quoting a OECD-report that will be published tomorrow. While both the IHT and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are both respectable, I first had a thorough look into that assumption.
Ten years ago I was taken to a larger number of Chinese high-tech parks where assembling washing machines was considered to be high-tech.

Data in the report due to be published Monday show that China's exports of information and communication technology - including laptop computers, mobile phones and digital cameras - increased by more than 46 percent to $180 billion in 2004 from a year earlier, easily outstripping for the first time U.S. exports of $149 billion, which grew 12 percent from 2003.

(Figures are quoted in US dollars)
China is also matching the US in terms of trade, the report reveals.
I wonder whether in today's jargon assembling mobile phones and computers is that much different from assembling washing machines ten years ago. It would make much more sense to compare R&D investments, where China also has improved much. Manufactering is just a different ball game, even when it is "cutting edge technology".