Book Review: Postcards from Tomorrow Square - Reports from China by James Fallows - Page 3

These stories are significant because mankind is facing an unprecedented energy and environment crisis. Solutions and efforts like the above are not just China's silver lining. Like many of Fallows' other stories, they also have policy implications for Americans. While America is bailing out GM hoping for a car of the future, the Chinese are innovating from the bottom up.

America is the world’s largest energy consumer, China is second. China is the world’s largest greenhouse gas producer, America is second. Only when the two countries work together in all sorts of "green" efforts, can we have more hope. Any effort in either country toward a greener economy should be encouraged. This means while China learns from America, so should America learn from China. Both countries should be willing to follow suit when a good idea emerges in either one.

The extent to which the essays in Postcards reflect not only on what is happening in China, but also in America, is impressive. Understanding China and the way to deal with it requires an understanding of both how Chinese people perceive America, and how America really works. Too often, both Chinese and American ideologies are presented as cartoons and the consequences of this can be terrible.

A popular columnist of the New York Times had an op-ed piece several months ago with a title quite similar to this book. He had recently visited Zhuhai's wind turbines, but somehow reached a conclusion that unless the one-party system is changed, "China can’t have a greener society." This assertion is simply illogical and foolish. China does need political reform, but should its people halt all "green" efforts until that happens? Furthermore, a multiparty system hardly guarantees results on the energy and environmental front. A united effort across nations and ideologies is needed more than anything else.

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So it is all the more impressive that there is a lot of simple honesty in Fallows' essays, which is both disarming and informative. Taken as a whole they provide a picture vivid with colors that do not seem shifted to the red or the blue.

In fact, even when Fallows writes about the things going wrong, from billowing clouds of white and black smoke, to a stubborn intention to control information flows, it evokes a certain optimism. There are two reasons for this. First, his writing is not judgmental, it does not try to demonstrate any conclusion so much as present the evidence and discuss what can be concluded from it. More importantly, it clearly reflects the dynamic nature of modern China. Things are constantly changing, some for the worse, some for the better, but there is always a difference. In fact, a concept Fallows repeatedly emphasizes is variety. In his own words, Fallows says, "The most important thing about them is, indeed, the variety of the aspects of china they present." I can't agree with him more that variety is the key concept for Westerners to begin to understand China.

Article Author: Xujun Eberlein

Xujun Eberlein, author of "Apologies Forthcoming," is a writer originally from China. She hosts the literary and cultural blog Inside-out China.

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