The road to Damascus is a strange place to assess the future of one of the world's most important industries.Yet the Syrian capital is the focus of an experiment that has the potential to reshape the automotive business.

For the past year or so, several Chinese car companies have been shipping vehicles to countries in the Middle East in a trial run for exports. From there, the Chinese are planning an assault on the car markets of the developed world. Chery, the most ambitious, plans to launch five specially developed models in the US in two years' time.