Having not read too much about life in China, other than what occasionally makes it into the news, I found this to be a thought-provoking, if somewhat repetitive, analysis of the aerospace industry in China. I had not given enough thought to how a Communist country even went about trying to foster a high-tech industry that seems to thrive on competition and innovation. The answer, as seen in this book, is that it cannot. As long as the government sets the parameters for growth and success, its version of the industry will always be at least a step behind the rest of the world.

This book is easy to read and often interesting. The main issue is that about a third of the way through, the author has really made all of his main points. The rest of the book becomes more of the same. But if you haven't kept up with what's going on in China, this can be an easy way to get a glimpse inside. ( )

China's meteoric ascent from the crippling poverty of the Mao era to its current status as a still-poor but fast-growing major power is one of the major success stories of human history. Aerospace is one industry that symbolizes China's aspirations towards first-world status as well as illuminates its shortcomings, and James Fallows, whose excellent 2010 essay collection Postcards From Tomorrow Square presented many fascinating details from China's "controlled, yet chaotic" headlong pursuit of growth, is well-positioned to report on what China's attempts to cultivate a homegrown aerospace industry might mean for itself and for the world. It's difficult for Americans, most of who have never known a world where we haven't been #1 in the categories that matter, to imagine what it was like during an era comparable to where China is today. Even during our own similar period of growth in the 19th century, we were not as poor, in many ways, as much of China is now, and even during the second half of that century, when Chicago was the fastest-growing city in the world, we didn't come close to the massive movements of human beings, material goods, and capital that China has experienced for decades now. Though China is of course building many rail lines and highways to cope with the gigantic annual flows of people within its borders, it's also extremely interested in air travel as a partial solution to this and other issues. And so, as Fallows forthrightly admits, while it's impossible to really convey the scope of what's happening there, one example that comes within range of being comprehensible is their attempt to create the foundation for the kind of aerospace industry that would be familiar to Americans.

It's much more difficult than it seems. First, some statistics: Air China's market capitalization is $19 billion, more than most of the largest US airlines combined, and along with China Southern and China Eastern, China has 3 of the 4 most valuable airlines in the world. In its most recent Five Year Plan, it plans to buy 4,500 new airplanes, which is half of all new planes sold in the world over that timeframe. Beijing's airport, already the world's second-largest with 74 million passengers in 2010, is growing in traffic at 10% a year. In terms of cargo, Hong Kong and Shanghai are #1 and #3, respectively, and each is still growing at 20% a year. And this is with an air infrastructure that is shockingly primitive in many ways. China has only 175 airports, less than a fifth of the US number, and even though as part of China's attempt to race its way to world competitiveness it's embarking on a massive construction boom, developing a mature culture of airline travel is much more complicated than simply building a bunch of new megaprojects, and here is where Fallows makes many good points on the changes that China will have to undergo before it has either a domestic air travel market that's as safe, reliable, and convenient as the US, or an aerospace industry that will be able to compete in international markets with the likes of Boeing or Airbus. You can build a bunch of airports, but what about training air traffic controllers? You can build planes, but what if they have such poor reputations for safety that no one wants to buy or fly them? You can advertise cheap tickets to your new airports, but what if your Air Force has a habit of shutting down civilian airspace at will for no reason? As Fallows related, it's clear that in order to have a first-world aerospace industry, China in many ways needs a first-world culture.

To back that contention up and provide more details on the many facets of this transformation, Fallows conducts many interviews with people who are involved in its various stages, from entrepreneurs to engineers to enthusiasts. There are many interesting historical details (I had no idea that Wong Tsu, the first chief engineer at Boeing who also designed the Model C, its first plane, was Chinese), along with a lot of context. To continue the 21st century China-19th century America analogy, China wants to make a similar move up the "smiley curve" - so-called because if you draw a graph of the profit added at each stage of a product's life, the highest profit is at the two ends during the design/concept stage and the retail/sale stage, not the manufacturing/production stage in the middle - which will involve not just the familiar slow accumulation of talents and skills, but also a complete change in the way the various levels of the Chinese government do business. Currently, the Chinese government is respected for the way it has managed the country's growth over the years, but it's still arbitrary, capricious, corrupt, nepotistic, secretive, and in many ways completely unsuited to managing an aerospace sector. People simply won't fly if, in the future, an aircraft inspector is punished for exposing the flaws in a politically-powerful manufacturer's craft, and getting to that point, where China is able to truly compete with Boeing and Airbus without simply copying or stealing their designs, will require a lot of subtle but profound changes in the way the Chinese government does business. There are many interesting facts and figures in the book, but possibly my favorite moment was when an Iranian-Canadian pilot was showing a Chinese official the strengths of the American aviation market by flying him around the Statue of Liberty. It will be a long time until the Chinese government is accountable, transparent, or respects the rule of law enough to get to that point, but it will be a fascinating journey (insert the obligatory "the sky's the limit" joke), and Fallows makes an excellent guide. ( )

Short book about China’s possibly burgeoning aeronautic industry, and the challenges and opportunities it faces/offers. Fallows emphasizes that there’s a huge amount of divergence in conditions across China, but also that there’s a great sense of possibility for improvement—something that often seems lacking in the US, where we don’t expect our government to do much that’s big. Of course, there’s plenty of cronyism and dysfunction in China; much of China’s investment in aeronautics may end up wasted as it produces planes that are too heavy and fails to innovate at the design end. Or not: Fallows concludes that anyone who claims to know what’s really going to happen in China is deluded at best. It sounds wishy-washy, but I found it a useful portrait of a fast-churning environment in which giant successes and failures are possible—and likely to have world-wide effects. ( )