China moving up to the next level

Policy | Giles Chance

Slew of reforms ushered in by new government will have a multiplier effect on economic growth

A friend gave me a copy of the book China Airborne by James Fallows. The author was based in China during 2006 to 2009 as a correspondent for the US monthly magazine The Atlantic. Although, as the title suggests, the book's specific subject is China's entry - as a major user and would-be manufacturer - into the modern aerospace industry, the book is really about something else: the nature of China's rise since 1980 and the challenges the country faces as it becomes one of the world's two superpowers.