Like looking in a funhouse distorted mirror, China reflects back at you what you want to see—and it always has.
Sometimes it has been the relentlessly positive view of the land of ever expanding markets the Lancashire mill owner dreamed of in the 19th century when mentally adding an inch to every Chinese shirttail, or the land of ubiquitous penetration today’s smartphone analysts extrapolate on a straight line from today’s 40%. Sometimes it has been the unremittingly negative view of a Yellow Peril washing over the earth as in the 19th century, or a cascade of falling dominos spreading Communism in the 1960s.
We’re just coming off a period when it was, by near unanimous acclimation, China’s century. Posh Western families gave their children Chinese nannies to sing them Mandarin lullabies to better prepare them for a Goldman Sachs intern competition 20 years hence; hipsters moved from Brooklyn to Beijing’s Sanlitun to notch their belt with cool experiences; banks, brokerages, private equity houses, consultancies and media companies bulked up their Beijing and Shanghai offices to harvest the seemingly inevitable riches.