China reflections...

I may take weeks or months for me to fully digest the trip to China earlier this month. Some initial reactions:

• Even having read and seen so much in recent years about China's economic growth and the success some there now enjoy, it still came as a bit of a shock to see the extremes of wealth and poverty there. Outside Xi'an, we visited a family that has lived in a cave for 5 generations. The next day, we were experiencing the enormous wealth and rapid pace of construction in Shanghai - a truly breathtaking contrast.
• Every Chinese I spoke with was more sober and cautious about China's future than I was. they see the enormous challenges that lie ahead and understand how China still has so far to go to become a major economic power on a scale with the US. Per capita, they are right. And China has enormous challenges ahead - educating the masses, improving healthcare and other infrastructure, dealing with the rampant destruction of its environment, the growing poverty gap, unrest in the provinces, etc. But I couldn't help but be impressed by how every educated Chinese I spoke with saw this as a path China is on and that they get what they need to do on every level.
• The people we met in high-tech companies - Lenovo and Augmentum - were very impressive, young, and ambitious. They seem to be blending the best of Western/American business practices with the best China has to offer. They are great at graphic design and high-tech manufacturing. They still lack the innovation that is America's strength - but they know that and are trying to train/educate/empower the next generation to be innovators. How will that mesh with a still very authoritarian regime politically? Great question...
• There are so many opportunities for cooperation with China - alternate sources of energy, environmental protection, urban planning, etc. - that could help us economically and politically avoid seeing each other as threats only. It may well be inevitable that a rising China and the US will see each other as rivals - in Asia and globally - but that does not have to preclude finding areas of mutual interest and cooperation, too.
• We encountered no anti-Americanism. Quite the opposite - in spite of the Chinese government's nationalistic/China First rhetoric over the past years, we found everyone to be very inviting and friendly and eager to help us. Many Chinese tourists in Beijing wanted to take pictures with our students. People in the cities seem to embrace signs of American and Western businesses as evidence of the "international" character of those cities and new economic opportunities, not a cultural/economic invasion.
• The pollution is terrible - did not see a blue sky while I was there. It is tragic that they are destroying their country like they are.
• Traffic in Beijing is bad but not like the worst of Boston or NYC. But it will only get worse as they add so many more cars each day.
• I got the sense that many Chinese in the cities see China's rise as its reemergence. For thousands of years China was a great civilization. After a brief interlude, it is back! China as an advanced and great power is seen as China's normal state and destiny, not a new phenomenon. Shanghai is clearly on its way to becoming the commercial and financial center of Asia - and China is intent on making that happen.
• The poor farmers living in the cave are so disconnected from the "new" China. When asked about the economic changes and growth - with the nearby highway construction as evidence - one woman said, "It has nothing to do with us."