For an insightful overview of China…

Just finished reading James Fallows’ Postcards From Tomorrow Square: Reports from China.

Even though he only spent 3 years in China, Fallows has definitely done his homework as a journalist by making sure he saw a wide range of places (from factory floors to post-earthquake villages) and talked to people from top to bottom (CEOs of billion dollar enterprises as well as casual bystanders).

His book is insightful and easy-to-read and I recommend it to anyone who is trying to make sense of modern China and its relation to the US.

One theory that he hints at early on in the book caught me by surprise: The Chinese people are perpetually outraged at the Japanese not because their government spews propaganda about it, but because they have undergone the tragedy of a harsh Cultural Revolution and have few other avenues (certainly few so overlooked by the government) to vent their confusion and frustration.

Fallows blogs for the Atlantic here and his China-related posts here.