In Dalian, a bustling port city in northeastern China, a mall developer wanted Starbucks to locate there so badly, it mapped out a space for the cafe five years before the mall broke ground.

The ultra-modern Parkland Shopping Mall opens later this month with a gleaming Starbucks at the entrance. If the location was all but handed to the specialty-coffee company, finding employees wasn't hard, either. Hundreds lined up to interview for 15 jobs.

The Seattle-based retailer — so ubiquitous in the U.S. that some downtown areas boast multiple locations within a single block — has plans to replicate its U.S. growth in Asia, with China its rising star.

Six years after opening its first cafe in Beijing, Starbucks now expects the traditionally tea-drinking China to become its largest market outside of North America — no small feat considering the U.S. has more than 7,300 stores. Once again, Starbucks plans to create a cafe culture just as it did in the U.S. 18 years ago and is already up to 209 stores in 17 cities, including Hong Kong and Macau.

"China's emerging as one of the centers of the world, if not the center of the world," said Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, who returned last week from an 11-day trip to Asia. "If my kids were of very young ages today, I would be asking them, and encouraging them, to learn Chinese."

"To get rich is glorious"

Northwest of Dalian lies the ancient city Badaling.

Millions visit here each year to see one of the most preserved sections of the Great Wall, remnants of the Ming Dynasty when the fortification was built to protect the Juyongguan Pass from foreign invaders.

Here, in the shadows of the wall, is one of China's newest Starbucks. More than a cafe, it's a symbol of how rapidly times have changed.

Five years ago, when Starbucks built a small, two-table cafe in Beijing's Forbidden City, the move stirred a tempest in a cappuccino cup.

The Chinese media backlash was so virulent — one newspaper compared the cafe's opening to slapping China's 1.2 billion countrymen in the face — alarmed officials considered revoking Starbucks' one-year license after two months.

Despite early opposition, the location remained. China's own view of the world, meanwhile, continued to rapidly shift.

The late Deng Xiaoping, China's former supreme leader, sparked the seeds of the country's economic expansion two decades ago with the bold decree: "To get rich is glorious."

Deng helped transform China into a market-oriented economy; China's 2001 accession into the World Trade Organization only served to accelerate its growth.

Status and success

With increasing exposure to Western brands, the young, trendy and affluent began to view Starbucks — or xing bake (shin bah-KUH) as it's called here — as a brand that signified success, status and wealth. In China, Starbucks customers tend to walk down the street with their coffee cups, round green logo facing out.

Starbucks caught on to the shift two years ago when its joint-venture partners in Hong Kong and Shanghai came to the same conclusion: They had underestimated the opportunity. "Then we began to spend a lot of time there and began to realize, 'You know what? You're right,' " Schultz said.

While Starbucks doesn't break out financial results by country, international third-quarter sales rose 32 percent to $262.4 million. That still represents a sliver — less than 20 percent — of the company's overall revenue. Total third-quarter sales were $1.36 billion.

Starbucks a year ago said it was far from reaching its saturation point, particularly abroad. The company ratcheted its growth forecast by 20 percent, saying it had room to eventually triple in size to 30,000 stores, half overseas.

In the Asia Pacific Region, the company expects to eventually open 6,500 locations, including a store-count in China that could reach into the thousands.

Starbucks in April opened its first company-operated store in Qingdao, a seaside city sandwiched between the Jiaozhou Bay and Yellow Sea.

While the company operates the majority of its sites through joint-venture partnerships and licensees, Starbucks wants to develop its own experience in the market.

Continuing to foster relations with the government and local mayors is key. Right now, the company routinely gets invited to local development projects. This is vital in large, metropolitan areas where for-lease signs are rare in front of commercial buildings.

The company, meanwhile, unveiled the Starbucks China Education Project in September, a $5 million fund that will go toward educating the country's rural poor. Starbucks couldn't have found a better endorsement. The event was attended by "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" actress Ziyi Zhang.

The reception to the Great Wall Starbucks opening last month was far different from the Forbidden City experience. The expansive location, built at the behest of the Chinese government, was unveiled with grand ceremonial splendor.

Schultz sees the change this way:

"They have an aspirational view of the world and of themselves and they see their life and their country changing," Schultz said. "Starbucks came along at a time that filled this — not an aspirational need — I wouldn't go that far."

Schultz paused: "Starbucks represents something beyond a cup of coffee."

Cafe cachet

A tall Starbucks latte in China costs between $2.70 to $3.09. In a country where the middle class earns an average salary of $10,000 per year, it's no small purchase.

Here, places such as Starbucks, McDonald's and KFC are seen as fine-dining experiences, a place to take your family or a date. The high Western prices are part of the cachet.

"It's not considered a fast-food experience," said George Koo, director of the Chinese Services Group at the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche.

Whereas 80 percent of Starbucks' U.S. customers order their drinks to go, the same percentage order their drinks to stay in China. If early mornings are busiest in the U.S., customers frequent Chinese locations during the afternoon and dinner hours, when they have time to linger.

Koo said chains such as KFC and McDonald's have introduced another important concept to Chinese consumers: Western-style customer service.

Chinese consumers enjoy the bright, colorful, clean stores, where servers ask for your order with a smile.

"Before a prominent Western presence in China, surly waiters and surly salesclerks were pretty much what you'd expect," Koo said. "Nowadays, the five-star hotels in China are every bit as good as five-star hotels in Hong Kong and Tokyo — which means much better than the U.S."

While the brand's cachet has caught on here, it might not be the only reason for its rise in relevance: Before Starbucks, coffee was something served instant to foreigners at hotels, and for an exorbitant sum.

Koo said it's important for Starbucks to explore why its coffee is being consumed. "Is it because there is a genuine shift to coffee as a beverage of choice?" he said. "Or is it the perception of coffee as something to [show off] if you're looking for a status symbol? Depending on which way that it runs, it's a different kind of a market."

Middle-class muscle

Starbucks is looking to China's emerging middle class to grow its business. Roughly the size of the total U.S. population, this increasingly important demographic doesn't earn a lot by U.S. standards, but it doesn't spend a lot, either.

The Chinese savings rate — already the highest in the world — rose to 50 percent of gross domestic product in 2004, according to the International Monetary Fund. All eyes are on the middle class to see whether they can drive the domestic economy by increasing consumption.

Steve Dickinson, a Seattle-based international-trade attorney who has lectured at Beijing University's law school for the past decade, said it will be Starbucks' challenge to convince Chinese consumers to view spending through a different lens.

"They're just not comfortable with nonessential purchases," he said. "In 10 years, that won't be true, but there is a transition between now and the next step."

The company has other challenges. In a country that faces serious transportation issues, Starbucks must figure out ways to both store and deliver goods by efficient and cost-effective means.

During Schultz's trip, Starbucks held a three-day Asia Pacific retreat focused solely on supply-chain operations. Schultz said there's a "need to really invest ahead of the growth curve and get underneath the complexity of distributing products effectively and efficiently throughout the country."

Protecting its iconic logo remains a critical issue. China's laws are different when it comes to protecting the look and feel of a brand. (See copyright-infringement article in today's Business section.)

"Someone can come along and use the Starbucks format, colors, the look of the logo," Dickinson said. "They, say, don't put a mermaid on it, but put a seahorse and don't call it 'Starbucks' and call it 'Ram-tucks' with the same looking script.

"That's pretty hard to prevent in China and most other countries in the world."

Preservation of a culture

On Sept. 22, Schultz addressed the Hong Kong Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization, or YPO, about a uniquely American concept: baseball.

Schultz relayed a story about how his friend Tony La Russa invited him to St. Louis to see how he managed the Cardinals.

The team had just acquired right fielder Larry Walker from the Colorado Rockies for a princely sum.

Schultz told the audience that every player that joins the Cardinals sits down with a former baseball legend that has worn the uniform. This time, it was Hall of Famer Stan "The Man" Musial.

Schultz wasn't in the room, but was told later that Musial imparted to Walker that every time he puts on the uniform, he does so on behalf of everyone who wore it before him. Walker, it was told, was reduced to tears.

"What I'm trying to talk about is the preservation of a culture," Schultz said.

As Starbucks expands to thousands of stores in China, that will be its challenge: to preserve the culture behind its iconic brand and the market it seeks to own.

Monica Soto Ouchi: 206-515-5632

or msoto@seattletimes.com