It's a Juggernaut ... Not!

Beginning with Marco Polo's sojourn in China in the late 13th century, there have been two Chinas -- the China of the imagination, as interpreted by Westerners, and the real China as experienced by the Chinese. Post-imperial China provided some of the most powerful images of the 20th century. As we still see in old newsreels and magazines, Shanghai in the 1930s was a center of international glamour and intrigue. Next came the utter destruction of World War II, then Mao's China and the rampages of the Red Guard.

Today, China's economic rise, symbolized by space-needle towers and construction cranes in major cities, occupy a similar romanticized place in the minds of foreign commentators. As I write this article while flying over China, I am reminded of what lies beneath. China has its own vast and enduring reality, its own strengths and its own weaknesses. When outsiders speak of China, when you see media images of China, you should remind yourself that most of what we Westerners see and discuss are simply journalistic myths. The problem with these myths is that they interfere with our ability to understand what is really going on in China, and what is really going on is hugely important to everyone on the planet.

Chinese history is barely studied in the United States. I find that many people who talk about China sprinkle a few facts on a well-worn agenda. I often hear comments that the Chinese are taking our jobs and stealing our intellectual property. The 2 million U.S. workers who have lost their manufacturing jobs probably don't realize that many millions more Chinese have lost theirs over the same period of time, mostly because of restructuring of state-owned enterprises. U.S. media companies upset over intellectual property violations in China seemingly don't remember when similar laws were flouted in Japan. Things got better when Japanese companies grew and needed these same protections themselves. Protection of intellectual property is by and large a developmental problem shared by all countries at some point in their history.

Another oft-cited claim is that the imbalance of Chinese men to women will lead to roving bands of single men who will build an army based upon sexual frustration, which will inevitably attack the United States.

These are just a few examples of cocktail party wisdom about China that reveal our lack of basic knowledge. Let's explore a few myths:

China is emerging from a 1,000-year slumber.