China too prickly for its own good

James Fallows is one of the most experienced and thoughtful American journalists and essayists, who has the great fortune to work for The Atlantic, a monthly, which gives him time to think and write without being swept into the whirligig of daily journalism.

He spent several years in China to produce a slim volume, China Airborne, which has sent the Chinese blogosphere humming, much of it supersensitively hostile. Authors should expect criticism, but the narrow nationalism of some Chinese views against Fallows augurs badly for the rest of the world dealing with superpower China, particularly when the leadership is changing.

More important, it augurs badly for China's own attempts to get to grips with its growing political, economic and social problems, some of which stem from success and others from the flaws in the model.

Fallows loves flying and chooses China's aviation industry as his theme, and this takes him into highly pertinent observations about China's industry, modern economy and society and its relationships with the world.

Some of his observations will not surprise people who know China, such as the dead hand of bureaucracy and the question of whether China can let a billion fresh ideas bloom, or as Fallows puts it, can release "the openness and experimentation that world leadership in fields like aerospace would demand".

Fallows is careful and fair-minded and in his final sentences refuses to take sides in the great debate over whether China is going to be the world's megapower or is going to crash like Icarus as political, social and economic contradictions overwhelm its frail model.

In his final chapter, Fallows examines general issues of China's amazing growth and whether it can continue, which takes him into contentious areas including questions of universalism, the Great American Dream, the role of history, whether a "China model" or "Beijing consensus" could be developed to benefit the rest of the world.