My return to China brought on the same sense of unreality that I felt in 2002. China is real enough, it is my own country’s continued failure to recognise the rise and rise of China which is unreal.

In Australia our media is full of American voices that if they mention China at all it is largely in terms derived from Cold War rhetoric (ironically, as much as we in Australia try to see the world through American eyes, Australia is one of the least frequently mentioned countries in US media).

In America I was staggered to discover that most of its citizens know little or nothing about the outside world. Yet even the best-educated and most intelligent are totally convinced of their ability and their right to rule over that world. In their minds they are God’s chosen people.

China is not Paradise, it is the eighth poorest nation on Earth – as well as the most populous – and it is easy to find fault from a Western perspective. Yet China is not truly a Third World country because in fact it has a First World infrastructure in terms of resources, transport, communications and a comparatively highly educated workforce receiving Third World wages.

That’s what powers China’s economy and will for at least another twenty years. More than 60% of China’s population live in rural areas in the most abject poverty. The government’s solution is to create more cities and draw the rural population into them. It is normal for China’s huge central government to think in such broad sweeps and they have made huge blunders – the famines of the early post-Revolution years and the Cultural Revolution to name but two.

But since China opened to the West in the 80’s (and aside from 1989 and the Tiananmen Square massacre which NO ONE wants to talk about) the big boys in Beijing seem to keep kicking goals. There are obvious problems, pollution being but one, yet the obvious advances I saw after only two years made me believe that in time China will solve all her problems one by one.

I can’t comment on political and religious freedom in China. What freedom do the very poor have in any country? I think the government that feeds their kids and puts a roof over their heads will win their vote. When US politicians speak of Democracy it seems to mean freedom for Americans to make money in other people’s countries… which is exactly what they are doing in China, so why are they complaining?

Apparently China’s huge book publishing industry is relatively uncontrolled because it is too big for the bureaucracy to intensely supervise. The film industry, which used to suffer fairly strict controls, is currently enjoying increasing freedom to make social criticism.

In 2004 the Chinese Government announced it was lifting a four-year ban on the movie Beijing Bicycle by “sixth generation” director Wang Xiaoshuai and his other most famous movie So Close to Paradise was freely available in Beijing DVD shops while I was there in April 2004. Both films are trenchantly critical of the poverty and social tensions of urban living.

The closing of inefficient government factories, especially under pressure from the WTO, is causing massive unemployment in large cities with a consequent increase in crime and homelessness. This is a central theme in a 2002 movie, Happy Times, by China’s most famous director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, The Road Home, etc.) who had many of his earlier movies suppressed for many years – all freely available in China now, with or without government approval.

Even China’s most commercially successful director Feng Xiaogang (who has made some wonderful comedies starring my favourite Chinese actor, Ge You) was refused permission to make No Thieves At All in 2002 because a thief was considered an unsuitable protagonist. He has since got approval.

The point is, China is changing so rapidly that any criticism of policies or of social conditions is liable to be wrong … in a month, a year, a few years at most. But I say this as a middle aged, middleclass white male on holiday in China for a few weeks, staying in comfortable hotels and wandering the streets with plenty of money in my pocket.

You will have to judge for yourself, through subsquent pages, if the China and Chinese people I saw (and loved) was seen through rose coloured glasses - or simply not seen at all. (click buttons below to continue)

These little cuties are probably from the provinces. They will work long hours for little pay... and be grateful.	Music and DVD shops abound - not just Chinese but a surprisingly broad and sophisticated range. But it is hard to tell which are pirate copies.	This is for the benefit of those Chinese drivers who think their horns are magic buttons to make the fifteen cars in front of them disappear.