Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) is contemplating a sudden and fast move into the Chinese market with a $1 billion acquisition, which will vault Wal-Mart directly into the Chinese market almost immediately. Wal-Mart has Chinese operations already, but with China growing by leaps and bounds, Wal-Mart apparently wanted to establish an early foothold into that market by way of acquiring marketshare directly.

Wal-Mart will be acquiring Trust-Mart, a Taiwanese company, that will plant it as the largest food and department store network in China. Will Wal-Mart find international success in China? In markets such as South Korea and Germany, the world's largest retailer has been forced to remove itself due to flagging sales in those markets caused by Wal-Mart's apparent disregard for customizing its stores in those countries to the actual demographic and surrounding culture. With this latest acquisition, one of its largest in recent years, Wal-Mart hopefully will not repeat those same mistakes in China.

Right now, Wal-Mart's existing China sales of $1.2 billion are a small drop in the overall sales of $315 billion that the company posts annually. But, with China growing at the rapid pace that it is, Wal-Mart could conceivably conquer the world's fastest-growing market (by some accounts) in much less time than the 20 years it took it to grow its largest market, the U.S. If you're a WMT shareholder, pay attention to this one -- the fall of 2006 could be a red-letter day in Wal-Mart history.