This would smooth out some bumps in the price of health care, lowering costs for old-line industries heavy with retirees, while getting more from smaller companies.

But the main thrust of Wuhan's strategy has been to rely on an old-line industry, automobile manufacturing, whose history here predates China's economic liberalization.

"A lot of it is old-line industries paring activities over time."

Nor can the unemployment problem be solved by continuing the huge subsidies that prop up old-line industries like coal and steel.

Officials pledged to increase subsidies for China's northeastern region, where old-line government-run industries have withered and unemployed workers are a source of social unrest.

And old-line industries like steel and textiles, which were shrinking even before the recession began, are faring even worse now.

These days, even old-line industries are realizing that cyberspace is crucial to their future.

Utilities, once seen as a stodgy, if sometimes dividend-rich, old-line industry, have joined the merger mania.

While the news media lavished attention on the new economy, old-line industries dramatically remade themselves.

And in some old-line industries, like the apparel business, the notion of a virtual company is just a fancier name for what has been done for generations.