The Chinese are very smart, well educated, super ambitious, and driven to succeed. Yet to Americans they are as nice as anywhere I have traveled which is much of the world. They genuinely like us. It was entirely safe on the street, even when I wandered through tiny back alleys where no American has likely ever ventured. In those areas nobody even noticed me and almost no westerners go to these mid China cities. There are almost no cops on any streets and yet it is perfectly safe to walk around.

The roads are the best I have ever seen and every freeway and main road in the city is beautifully landscaped and manicured and maintained. The cars are all new. There are almost no bikes left in China. Everyone rides a motor scooter or a car. Everyone has an I phone or smart phone. The people are all healthy looking, walking with a determination and they all look they just had a shower- they are clean. While it is not clean on the streets due to the pollution, there is no litter anywhere, no gum stuck to the walk. I use the miniskirt as a indicator of where this society is. Many of the young women wear miniskirts to work and at night or very tight jeans. To me that says these young ladies feel free and self confident and not afraid to show off the latest American fashions they just bought. Compare that to women in the middle east or India and you have a simple indicator of Chinese society vs the other developing areas where the potential exists but they will never be China. And yes many of the girls are very pretty. In Chongqing many successful developers are women.

If you go to Shanghai or Beijing or some of the eastern coastal cities and think you have seen and know China- you have not seen it. It is like a tourist saying I saw New York, Beijing and Atlanta and so I saw America. Shanghai and especially Pudong is nothing to do with where we were in central China. Pudong is the most gorgeous new city you will ever see. The architecture is unbelievable. They took a huge farm land area and in seven years created the most modern city in the world. And it is sparkling clean. It is right across the river from the old Bund which is the European banking center of 100 years.

China is almost pure capitalist now, while the US is becoming socialist by comparison. There are few benefits packages for employees. There is no real social security or Medicare as we know it because the kids always cared for the older family members. The kids in China are now moving away and leaving the parents and grandparents adrift. China has a giant problem in a few years paying for hundreds of millions of essentially abandoned elderly. They don't have pensions.

I could go on but I am limited to space. Here are some take aways. If you think you can go to China on your own and set up business relationships and be successful on your own you will get hosed. Corruption is part of the everyday culture. Contratcs are meaningless since there are not really functioning courts for commercial disputes. And anyway, you don't have the judge in your pocket. Unless you can link with a Chinese partner who you can vet as reasonably honest, and so long as you do not invest in hard assets as an investment, you may do OK. We are purely fee driven in our venture and our partners on the ground are Chinese American living there for over 25 years and impeccable. Trust is not a word Chinese know. Guanxi is. That means relationships whether through extended or months of dinner and late night partying and certain other ways of building relationships. You do not just walk into China and think you can replicate this. You will get your clock cleaned. If you think you can just pay off the right people you really do not understand anything about how the Chinese do business. If you do not drink late into the nite and eat until you can't eat anymore you will fail. This is a place that is so different and so thoroughly corrupt and dishonest that without the right local people on your team you will lose you money. They are not above just ripping up a contract and throwing you out.

In quick summary, China is going to surpass the US in 5 years and leave us in the dust. Obama is going 180 degrees the wrong way and is drowning us in debt and regulations. China is as pro business as anywhere in the world. They bend over backwards to help business. Obama wants to regulate and tax us if we succeed. The Chinese want to help their people succeed and become wealthier. It is a world turned upside down. China has absolutely no interest to ever attack the US or get into a war with us. They have never been imperialists in 3000 years and they know it would be stupid. They may get into a skirmish with Vietnam or even Japan but not a war that brings us in. They will simply beat us in business and run right over us while we drown ourselves in debt and regulation. The US had better wake up fast, and fix the fiscal mess, and become pro business, or we will be number two in five years.