Matt Schiavenza From the Dragon to the Apple- A Sinophile in New York

China Mythbusting

James Fallows points to a recent survey by Pew in which a shocking percentage of Americans believe that China is more of an economic superpower than the US. This is of course completely false, as Fallows goes on to explain and then illustrate with a photograph of dormitory conditions at Chinese universities.

I've discussed previously that rural China is as valid- if not more so- a representation of the country as the major urban centers in the east. Why then does this misconception persist?

• China's massive population skews numbers. In gross terms, China's economy is the third largest in the world, ranking between Japan and Germany. In terms of growth per capita, though, China is by any measure a poor country. This Wikipedia page lists GDP per capita figures in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). Countries ranked near China include Angola, Armenia, and Namibia. Nobody in America thinks of these countries as economic superpowers, do they? And yet in one sense China's economic position is more similar to them than it is to America, Japan, or Germany. There are a lot of wealthy people in China, but that's because there are a lot of people, period.

• China competes with America as a model of economic development. The United States often ties economic aid packages to various political and human rights benchmarks in developing countries. China's formula is much more simple: it will provide infrastructure development in the developing world in exchange for raw materials. It isn't difficult to see why countries such as Sudan, Burma, and Zimbabwe prefer dealing with Beijing than with Washington. China's system of international relations are essentially the first challenge to American hegemony since the collapse of the Soviet Union, thus leading to an outsized perception of its real influence and power.

• China likes to promote its economic development. Beijing is fond of reminding the world that China is still a developing country, which is of course true. But in the meantime China's leadership doesn't shy from publicizing China's accomplishments to the outside world. The National Day parade in October focused on China's military might, not its pacifist self-perception. Large, expensive projects such as the Three Gorges Dam and Beijing's Olympian transformation crowd out more pedestrian signs of development.

  Why? Much of the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party depends on fostering a sense of national pride, and national pride is best conveyed through shows of might, force, and wealth rather than those of humility and cries of poverty.

• The 'yellow menace' milieu still exists in the United States. It is easy to forget that during my childhood in the 1980s and 1990s Japan, not China, was seen as the rising power in East Asia. In those days there was a broad sense that Japan's economic success would lead it to surpass the United States, and that before long we'd be speaking Japanese and buying our goods in yen.

  Then came Japan's 'lost decade' coupled with the rise of China. Now, Beijing rather than Tokyo is seen as the future Oriental hegemon, but the basic narrative hasn't changed. In popular culture it is far more interesting to see China as a rising giant rather than as a poor, developing country.

There are other reasons, but these I feel are the most pertinent. And while we're on the subject of myth-busting and China, please see this must-read post by the superb Evan Osnos of The New Yorker.