Earlier in the summer the China-United States Exchange Foundation invited me, along with three other economics writers, on a tour of China. It occurred over 11 days, and the trip included cities Beijing, Urumqi and Kashgar in the westernmost region of the country, followed by Shanghai.
The purpose of these visits funded by the Foundation was to gain a better understanding of China's promise, along with the myriad challenges that the country faces on the way to achieving developed status. Certainly China is misunderstood, and all it takes to see this is to read the coverage of it in U.S. publications.
We are told that the country is full of low income workers set to take the jobs of more highly paid Americans. Yet this description is often paired with the suggestion that China is already so rich that its government is single-handedly funding the U.S. government's nosebleed deficits. China is also characterized as a "currency manipulator" for its currency's peg to the dollar keeping the yuan artificially weak despite China effectively handing off its currency policy to the U.S. Treasury.
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