My first trip to China was over 15 years ago and I’ve been going regularly about 3 to 4 times a year regularly every year since. I’ve been all over the country, but mainly in the eastern “rich” areas. Every trip I see something surprising.
The changes in China have been utterly astonishing.
But even with all the average 9%+ GDP annual growth rate every year for the last couple decades, there are still 600 million dirt poor peasants! Most of them now have dreams of cars and upward mobility.
The centrally planned govt, and ability to fastrack projects with agressive emminent domain allows many of these infrastructure projects to be completed in probably 1/4 the time or shorter than in the states. I bet that the entire Chinese nationwide high speed rail line will be nearly complete before the first real line is finished in the states.
Airports are another example. Most major and many minor cities in china have modern very nice airports that put US Airports to shame, especially LAX, JFK. A bunch of that stimulus should have upgraded airports. The Chinese airline system is impressive with good number of competitive airlines, with newer planes and better service than their US airline counterparts.
