Despite optimism, still a long road ahead

Today China is the news.

The country's rise as an economic power has been one of the hottest topics in the world. Catching the trend The Economist published a special section on China in its Jan 28 issue, the first time in six decades that it has devoted a separate section to a single country. The last time it did so was in 1942 when it covered the United States. "China's emergence as a global power justified giving it a section of its own," says the magazine's Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait.

I have often heard odes to China's progress in recent years.