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China Airborne
More than two-thirds of the new airports under construction today are being built in China. Chinese airlines expect to triple their fleet size over the next decade and will account for the fastest-growing market for Boeing and Airbus. But the Chinese are determined to be more than customers. In 2011, China announced its Twelfth Five-Year Plan, which included the commitment to spend a quarter of a trillion dollars to jump-start its aerospace industry. Its goal is to produce the Boeings and Airbuses of the future. Toward that end, it acquired two American companies: Cirrus Aviation, maker of the world’s most popular small propeller plane, and Teledyne Continental, which produces the engines for Cirrus and other small aircraft.
In China Airborne, James Fallows documents, for the first time, the extraordinary scale of this project and explains why it is a crucial test case for China’s hopes for modernization and innovation in other industries. He makes clear how it stands to catalyze the nation’s hyper-growth and hyper- urbanization, revolutionizing China in ways analogous to the building of America’s transcontinental railroad in the nineteenth century. Fallows chronicles life in the city of Xi’an, home to more than 250,000 aerospace engineers and assembly workers, and introduces us to some of the hucksters, visionaries, entrepreneurs, and dreamers who seek to benefit from China’s pursuit of aerospace supremacy. He concludes by examining what this latest demonstration of Chinese ambition means for the United States and the rest of the world—and the right ways to understand it.
In China Airborne, James Fallows documents, for the first time, the extraordinary scale of this project and explains why it is a crucial test case for China’s hopes for modernization and innovation in other industries. He makes clear how it stands to catalyze the nation’s hyper-growth and hyper- urbanization, revolutionizing China in ways analogous to the building of America’s transcontinental railroad in the nineteenth century. Fallows chronicles life in the city of Xi’an, home to more than 250,000 aerospace engineers and assembly workers, and introduces us to some of the hucksters, visionaries, entrepreneurs, and dreamers who seek to benefit from China’s pursuit of aerospace supremacy. He concludes by examining what this latest demonstration of Chinese ambition means for the United States and the rest of the world—and the right ways to understand it.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
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June 29, 2012
Let me admit it up front: Few topics could bore me as much as avionics and the aerospace industry. I only want to know that my pilot can take off, get me to where I want to go and land the plane safely. I don't really know the difference between the words "avionics" and "aerospace." So I approached China Airborne with a touch of trepidation: How could I possibly enjoy a book about a topic I find dryer than dust?
Leave it to James Fallows to take a subject to which I am indifferent (if not downright hostile) and turn it into a story of suspense and adventure, human and technological, and to delight me with every page. Yes, China Airborne is about aviation in China, how it started, how it has evolved and where it's heading, yet the book transcends its ostensible subject, which Fallows uses as a metaphor for China's evolution in general, for its advancement into the modern era, and all the challenges it faces as it seeks to break away from its role as the maker of goods designed by others to a nation that actually pioneers new technologies.
Before the 1990s China's aviation industry lagged drastically behind that of the developed world, to say the least. Most of the planes were Russian made, the airports were primitive and few, and its safety record atrocious. Now China is home to some of the world's most impressive airports, its aviation industry is growing at breakneck speed with billions of dollars in government funding, and it boasts one of the highest air safety records in the world.
How China got here is a breathtaking story, a story of China's famous "can-do" attitude and willingness to throw itself into the projects it sets its sights on. An important part of this story and one the Chinese are less likely to talk about is the role of US entities, especially companies like Boeing and engineers and contractors from US agencies, which guided China along the way over the decades. Fallows charts China's progress during these years and introduces us to the cast of characters who possessed the vision, the skills and the sheer bravura to move China's aviation industry into the modern age.
Fallows' description of the proposed development of an avionics research center in a remote area outside of Xi'An immediately brought to mind a chapter in Peter Hessler's Country Driving, where he describes the building of a factory in China that plans to manufacture the little metal rings that hold brassieres together. They have no customers, no plans for sales or marketing, no business infrastructure, yet they pour money into building the factory, get it going into full swing and hire a complete staff. Eventually, after several months, they begin to get customers. Build it, and they will come. The same, it seems, with this aviation center and its grandiose plans to transform the region to attract tourists and become China's center for aviation research.
Fallows describes how projects like these begin at the local level in China, the first step being winning the blessing of local officials and convincing them of the financial rewards to their region. A lot of guanxi is expended along the way. The dreamers will worry about getting the central government involved later. The avionics center project was immense, and Fallows' descriptions of the building of runways in what was essentially the wilderness are amusing but also so quintessentially Chinese -- we can do this, and we can do it on a grand scale! The obstacles they face -- and there will be many -- can be dealt with later.
A pilot himself (the book begins with his preparation to co-pilot the first Cirrus plane in China), Fallows obviously loves this topic. The breadth of his knowledge is sweeping and I closed the book rather amazed at all I had learned about what it takes to manage international flight, how today's jets are built, how new GPS systems are changing how pilots take off and land and making it possible to put up runways even in remote rugged mountain terrain in Tibet. As I started the book I didn't really want to know about these things, but I was quickly engrossed.
To a large extent this book is about China's efforts to adapt to an age when leading an industry means opening up your people's minds to new ideas, to new ways of thinking, to sharing knowledge and information. The last quarter of the book is less about flight and more about the Chinese government's conflicting interests, ones we've discussed so many times here: retaining control and directing people's thoughts vs. opening up and encouraging talent to blossom. If China wants to be on the frontier of the aerospace industry it needs to draw talent from all over the world. It will have to loosen the military's grip on who controls the skies so the industry can operate without ridiculous and irrational restrictions.
Fallows makes the point more than once that China has the hardware, the money and the facilities but, he writes, "it lacks the 'soft' ingredients necessary for a fully functioning, world-leading aerospace establishment. These include standards that apply consistently across the country rather than depending on the whim and favor of local potentates. Or smooth, quick coordination among civil, military and commercial organizations. Or sustaining the conditions -- intellectual property protection, reliable contract enforcement and rule of law, freedom of inquiry and expression -- that allow first-rate research-and-developments institutions to thrive and attract talent from around the world. If China can succeed fully in aerospace, then in principle there is very little it cannot do."
Fallows doesn't pretend to be a prophet and he leaves this question open. But he is clear about one thing: without the requirements he lists, without greater rule of law and respect for contracts, without protection of intellectual property, China will surely fail to meet its objective. It will not lead the world in technology and innovation. The book is all about China's dreamers and their dreams. It would be such a pity to see China's inflexibility and insecurities hold its people's dreams back.
Boeing and Airbus see China as its most promising market and have agreed to joint ventures that involve the sharing of technology, despite the risks, because they know this is where the customers of the future are. China will play a huge role in the assembly of today's incredibly complex jetliners, just as it does with iPhones. It will be buying more aircraft than any other nation. But can China design the next jetliner or iPhone?
It cannot, Fallows argues, unless it embraces "the openness and experimentation that world leadership in fields like aerospace would demand." China now shields its people, protects them from "harmful content" on the Internet, which Fallows says makes many Chinese feel "infantilized and diminished by this reminder that they're not quite part of the modern world." China has to deal, too, with its paranoia and prickly sensitivities, its inability to deflect incidents like Liu Xiaobo's winning the Nobel Peace Prize instead of being thrown off balance and revealing its insecurities to the world. There's a lot about China's thirst for soft power, and how it always gets put onto the back burner behind China's No. 1 priority, internal stability and complete power of the party.
I bookmarked so many passages in this wonderful book, and I can't go into every aspect of it that I enjoyed. It is about so much more than I can say here. It's worth reading just for Fallows' description of how he and his wife were bullied by plainclothes police at Tiananmen Square on the 20-year anniversary of the June 4th crackdown (an incident he blogged about at the time).
You come away from this book so impressed with what China has done and can do, with just how extraordinary its progress has been and how its authoritarian system has, so far, worked well enough that most people in China would say their lives are better off today than they were twenty or thirty years ago. But you also come away with strong doubts about China's ability to rise to the next stage of power, where its people's creativity and imaginations are unleashed, and where universal laws are respected. Where China becomes a true global citizen, concerned not so much with the specialness of China but with China's role as a world leader. (This discussion of how China fosters the notion of its own uniqueness, with 5,000 years of history, as opposed to its place within the world community as a nation that cares -- or at least pretends to care -- about other nations aside from itself is one of the most fascinating in the book.)
I strongly recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand China and its place in the 21st century. Fallows' accumulated wisdom of living in China, starting with his first visit there in 1986, pervades every page, and you will be thinking about where China is heading for a long time after you put it down.
Leave it to James Fallows to take a subject to which I am indifferent (if not downright hostile) and turn it into a story of suspense and adventure, human and technological, and to delight me with every page. Yes, China Airborne is about aviation in China, how it started, how it has evolved and where it's heading, yet the book transcends its ostensible subject, which Fallows uses as a metaphor for China's evolution in general, for its advancement into the modern era, and all the challenges it faces as it seeks to break away from its role as the maker of goods designed by others to a nation that actually pioneers new technologies.
Before the 1990s China's aviation industry lagged drastically behind that of the developed world, to say the least. Most of the planes were Russian made, the airports were primitive and few, and its safety record atrocious. Now China is home to some of the world's most impressive airports, its aviation industry is growing at breakneck speed with billions of dollars in government funding, and it boasts one of the highest air safety records in the world.
How China got here is a breathtaking story, a story of China's famous "can-do" attitude and willingness to throw itself into the projects it sets its sights on. An important part of this story and one the Chinese are less likely to talk about is the role of US entities, especially companies like Boeing and engineers and contractors from US agencies, which guided China along the way over the decades. Fallows charts China's progress during these years and introduces us to the cast of characters who possessed the vision, the skills and the sheer bravura to move China's aviation industry into the modern age.
Fallows' description of the proposed development of an avionics research center in a remote area outside of Xi'An immediately brought to mind a chapter in Peter Hessler's Country Driving, where he describes the building of a factory in China that plans to manufacture the little metal rings that hold brassieres together. They have no customers, no plans for sales or marketing, no business infrastructure, yet they pour money into building the factory, get it going into full swing and hire a complete staff. Eventually, after several months, they begin to get customers. Build it, and they will come. The same, it seems, with this aviation center and its grandiose plans to transform the region to attract tourists and become China's center for aviation research.
Fallows describes how projects like these begin at the local level in China, the first step being winning the blessing of local officials and convincing them of the financial rewards to their region. A lot of guanxi is expended along the way. The dreamers will worry about getting the central government involved later. The avionics center project was immense, and Fallows' descriptions of the building of runways in what was essentially the wilderness are amusing but also so quintessentially Chinese -- we can do this, and we can do it on a grand scale! The obstacles they face -- and there will be many -- can be dealt with later.
A pilot himself (the book begins with his preparation to co-pilot the first Cirrus plane in China), Fallows obviously loves this topic. The breadth of his knowledge is sweeping and I closed the book rather amazed at all I had learned about what it takes to manage international flight, how today's jets are built, how new GPS systems are changing how pilots take off and land and making it possible to put up runways even in remote rugged mountain terrain in Tibet. As I started the book I didn't really want to know about these things, but I was quickly engrossed.
To a large extent this book is about China's efforts to adapt to an age when leading an industry means opening up your people's minds to new ideas, to new ways of thinking, to sharing knowledge and information. The last quarter of the book is less about flight and more about the Chinese government's conflicting interests, ones we've discussed so many times here: retaining control and directing people's thoughts vs. opening up and encouraging talent to blossom. If China wants to be on the frontier of the aerospace industry it needs to draw talent from all over the world. It will have to loosen the military's grip on who controls the skies so the industry can operate without ridiculous and irrational restrictions.
Fallows makes the point more than once that China has the hardware, the money and the facilities but, he writes, "it lacks the 'soft' ingredients necessary for a fully functioning, world-leading aerospace establishment. These include standards that apply consistently across the country rather than depending on the whim and favor of local potentates. Or smooth, quick coordination among civil, military and commercial organizations. Or sustaining the conditions -- intellectual property protection, reliable contract enforcement and rule of law, freedom of inquiry and expression -- that allow first-rate research-and-developments institutions to thrive and attract talent from around the world. If China can succeed fully in aerospace, then in principle there is very little it cannot do."
Fallows doesn't pretend to be a prophet and he leaves this question open. But he is clear about one thing: without the requirements he lists, without greater rule of law and respect for contracts, without protection of intellectual property, China will surely fail to meet its objective. It will not lead the world in technology and innovation. The book is all about China's dreamers and their dreams. It would be such a pity to see China's inflexibility and insecurities hold its people's dreams back.
Boeing and Airbus see China as its most promising market and have agreed to joint ventures that involve the sharing of technology, despite the risks, because they know this is where the customers of the future are. China will play a huge role in the assembly of today's incredibly complex jetliners, just as it does with iPhones. It will be buying more aircraft than any other nation. But can China design the next jetliner or iPhone?
It cannot, Fallows argues, unless it embraces "the openness and experimentation that world leadership in fields like aerospace would demand." China now shields its people, protects them from "harmful content" on the Internet, which Fallows says makes many Chinese feel "infantilized and diminished by this reminder that they're not quite part of the modern world." China has to deal, too, with its paranoia and prickly sensitivities, its inability to deflect incidents like Liu Xiaobo's winning the Nobel Peace Prize instead of being thrown off balance and revealing its insecurities to the world. There's a lot about China's thirst for soft power, and how it always gets put onto the back burner behind China's No. 1 priority, internal stability and complete power of the party.
I bookmarked so many passages in this wonderful book, and I can't go into every aspect of it that I enjoyed. It is about so much more than I can say here. It's worth reading just for Fallows' description of how he and his wife were bullied by plainclothes police at Tiananmen Square on the 20-year anniversary of the June 4th crackdown (an incident he blogged about at the time).
You come away from this book so impressed with what China has done and can do, with just how extraordinary its progress has been and how its authoritarian system has, so far, worked well enough that most people in China would say their lives are better off today than they were twenty or thirty years ago. But you also come away with strong doubts about China's ability to rise to the next stage of power, where its people's creativity and imaginations are unleashed, and where universal laws are respected. Where China becomes a true global citizen, concerned not so much with the specialness of China but with China's role as a world leader. (This discussion of how China fosters the notion of its own uniqueness, with 5,000 years of history, as opposed to its place within the world community as a nation that cares -- or at least pretends to care -- about other nations aside from itself is one of the most fascinating in the book.)
I strongly recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand China and its place in the 21st century. Fallows' accumulated wisdom of living in China, starting with his first visit there in 1986, pervades every page, and you will be thinking about where China is heading for a long time after you put it down.
August 7, 2012
Although it attempts to chronicle China’s budding aviation industry, James Fallows’ China Airborne worked better for me as an explanation of why America is falling apart. Fallows sets his tale about China’s burgeoning airplane manufacturing business within the context of these last several decades of economic triumphs, maintaining throughout the self-congratulatory voice of a seasoned foreign correspondent surveying an inscrutable landscape.
Fallows never fails to bore as he recounts a corporate history that frequently parrots the Communist Party’s official line, repeating, for example, the canard that the Great Leap Forward’s famine deaths were an accident of bad central planning, rather than a calculated step to enfranchise centralized power. His central conceit is that China’s success or failure to develop a domestic aviation industry will be the bellwether for China’s ascension to the ranks of modernized states. This allows him to promulgate an equivocal posture of reflexive relativism, from which emerges advice on how China can best achieve its goals – by listening to James Fallows.
Fallows never fails to bore as he recounts a corporate history that frequently parrots the Communist Party’s official line, repeating, for example, the canard that the Great Leap Forward’s famine deaths were an accident of bad central planning, rather than a calculated step to enfranchise centralized power. His central conceit is that China’s success or failure to develop a domestic aviation industry will be the bellwether for China’s ascension to the ranks of modernized states. This allows him to promulgate an equivocal posture of reflexive relativism, from which emerges advice on how China can best achieve its goals – by listening to James Fallows.
June 27, 2020
This book gives an insightful look at China through the lens of their aerospace program. Although the last fourth of the book goes on a tangent of speculation on the nature of modern China unrelated to the main thrust, so to speak, of the book, the vast majority combines vivid detail with worthwhile analysis of how the little parts of one sector of the economy speaks to something larger.
Most importantly, the book shows that for all the ballyhoo about China's inexorable rise, China's economy is ridden with ridiculous inefficiencies and communist-style repression. Most of the airspace is blocked off military space, inaccessible to any private airliners. Even the typical commercial approaches to cities are half as efficient as they should be because the military space takes up big blocks that could allow direct access to airports. The state-owned COMAC Company has been trying to build its own "airliner" to compete with Boeing and Airbus, but so far that just means doing a bad job attaching a fuselage to a bunch of Western avionic equipment and materials.
Even integrating Western products into Chinese travel has proven difficult. When Boeing sold a bunch of its own jets to China in the early 2000s, the US government forced China to improve its safety and pilot "check" systems, because much of what had been done before was just based on "connections," or state-owned companies regulated by state-runs regulators, sometimes with the owners and regulators actually living and working in the same complex together, under the same management. All of these traditions and habits make it hard for China to "climb the value chain" and create something truly new like an airliner, or even a sustainable travel industry.
So despite some odd segues, this is an impressive look at modern China, one that rings true to my own time there, but with much more insightful analysis than I could possibly provide.
Most importantly, the book shows that for all the ballyhoo about China's inexorable rise, China's economy is ridden with ridiculous inefficiencies and communist-style repression. Most of the airspace is blocked off military space, inaccessible to any private airliners. Even the typical commercial approaches to cities are half as efficient as they should be because the military space takes up big blocks that could allow direct access to airports. The state-owned COMAC Company has been trying to build its own "airliner" to compete with Boeing and Airbus, but so far that just means doing a bad job attaching a fuselage to a bunch of Western avionic equipment and materials.
Even integrating Western products into Chinese travel has proven difficult. When Boeing sold a bunch of its own jets to China in the early 2000s, the US government forced China to improve its safety and pilot "check" systems, because much of what had been done before was just based on "connections," or state-owned companies regulated by state-runs regulators, sometimes with the owners and regulators actually living and working in the same complex together, under the same management. All of these traditions and habits make it hard for China to "climb the value chain" and create something truly new like an airliner, or even a sustainable travel industry.
So despite some odd segues, this is an impressive look at modern China, one that rings true to my own time there, but with much more insightful analysis than I could possibly provide.
September 21, 2012
My feelings about this book are pretty much connected to my feelings about The Atlantic Magazine, which is that it always appears that the articles in it are going to be more interesting than they ever prove to be. Sure, there are exceptions — more so that with Harpers, which I generally find unreadable. Fallows, of course, writes for The Atlantic, and has the strengths and, even more so, the weaknesses I find there. Essentially, it's the experience of being trapped next to some knowledgeable but fundamentally boring person on a long airline flight. He talks and talks and occasionally what he says is, in and of itself, very interesting, but these moments are but plums embedded in a very bland pudding. Given that anything about China has great potential for reader interest, how does Fallows let me down. First of all, his major sources of information are English speaking, a fact that immediately makes you feel as though you've been wrapped in a marshmallow. Secondly, although much of what he writes hints that China's ambition to build a world-class aeronautics industry will most likely fail, and for many compelling reasons, he won't come out and say this, either because to do so would make him unwelcome in China or because he would just be wrong ... and he doesn't like being wrong. Also, why there are NO photos in this book of Chinese airports or airplanes, given the lackluster nature of his descriptive writing, is a total mystery to me.
Unfortunately, I can't summon up the mental energy to explain why — despite its great success in land-based infrastructure (trains, highways) — it has always been rather pathetic in terms of air travel and still ranks well below, say India, in its development of the same. The reasons are cultural, political, and intellectual, and if you're curious about this, Fallows does provide provocative answers. But you have to work out the consequences of these for yourself. I won't say I'm sorry I read the book, but I can't say it was time well spent. And if I weren't as interested as I am in what's going on in China these days, I wouldn't have gotten past the first chapter.
Unfortunately, I can't summon up the mental energy to explain why — despite its great success in land-based infrastructure (trains, highways) — it has always been rather pathetic in terms of air travel and still ranks well below, say India, in its development of the same. The reasons are cultural, political, and intellectual, and if you're curious about this, Fallows does provide provocative answers. But you have to work out the consequences of these for yourself. I won't say I'm sorry I read the book, but I can't say it was time well spent. And if I weren't as interested as I am in what's going on in China these days, I wouldn't have gotten past the first chapter.
October 29, 2019
I wish this was one of the first books I had read on China. Short, narrative non-fiction that examines contemporary China through the lense of their nascent aerospace industry.
March 13, 2022
Reasonably entertaining and engaging for the most part, but tangentially related to aviation at best for large stretches
June 11, 2012
Nice, breezy book that wasn't quite what I was hoping for. Since I find myself in the aerospace industry, I was really looking for a hard-hitting deep-dive into China's prospects for becoming the next Boeing or Airbus. Instead, the book really looks at aviation in general, not just the apex airframers who get a lion's share of the profit and press.
From the regulations and infrastructure needed to create a recreational aviation culture, to the political/military component of airspace in China, the book touches on a wide-range of topics that would be necessary for China to achieve success in aerospace & aviation. Although the author doesn't say it's impossible, he does layout a number of challenges that China must face in order to achieve it's goal.
He names aerospace an "apex industry;" one in which infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, education, safety, industrial capacity, etc all must be highly developed in order for the industry to be successful. There are few places in the world that can claim the right mix of all these factors, which is why there are really only two successful airframers in the world. Some of these factors China has no issues with; others will be challenging to address in the timeframe of a Five Year Plan.
Although I am not a China scholar, I think the author makes a number of good points regarding how far China must go to achieve success. It must build it's education/R&D capacities up to a level that allows for true innovation. It requires a regulatory framework in which the military does not own 98% of all the airspace in China. They must create and maintain a culture of safety in an industry that demands absolutely no failures. There was also a chapter devoted to environmental factors, which I felt was tacked on and written mostly to appease/please a certain segment of his readership (not that that isn't important...or necessary for success). I did think his insight into the idea of China as a federation of regional interests was illuminating. We in the United States tend to easily see China as the centrally-ruled Communist nation where everything is planned and implemented from the top-down, when, in actuality, China is simply too big for a central government to micro-manage. Local politicians and boosters can and do implement pet projects all the time, building airports to enhance their GDP or public image & only later trying to figure out how they'll get airplanes to land.
All in all, this was an entertaining and fairly informative read for those in the aerospace industry (or wherever) who may be interested in China's prospects for their next big push at becoming an international leader.
From the regulations and infrastructure needed to create a recreational aviation culture, to the political/military component of airspace in China, the book touches on a wide-range of topics that would be necessary for China to achieve success in aerospace & aviation. Although the author doesn't say it's impossible, he does layout a number of challenges that China must face in order to achieve it's goal.
He names aerospace an "apex industry;" one in which infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, education, safety, industrial capacity, etc all must be highly developed in order for the industry to be successful. There are few places in the world that can claim the right mix of all these factors, which is why there are really only two successful airframers in the world. Some of these factors China has no issues with; others will be challenging to address in the timeframe of a Five Year Plan.
Although I am not a China scholar, I think the author makes a number of good points regarding how far China must go to achieve success. It must build it's education/R&D capacities up to a level that allows for true innovation. It requires a regulatory framework in which the military does not own 98% of all the airspace in China. They must create and maintain a culture of safety in an industry that demands absolutely no failures. There was also a chapter devoted to environmental factors, which I felt was tacked on and written mostly to appease/please a certain segment of his readership (not that that isn't important...or necessary for success). I did think his insight into the idea of China as a federation of regional interests was illuminating. We in the United States tend to easily see China as the centrally-ruled Communist nation where everything is planned and implemented from the top-down, when, in actuality, China is simply too big for a central government to micro-manage. Local politicians and boosters can and do implement pet projects all the time, building airports to enhance their GDP or public image & only later trying to figure out how they'll get airplanes to land.
All in all, this was an entertaining and fairly informative read for those in the aerospace industry (or wherever) who may be interested in China's prospects for their next big push at becoming an international leader.
June 27, 2016
China Airborne, but James M. Fallow, is a book about the growing aerospace business in China. China is a country, for reasons social, cultural, political and economically, which has a heavily underdeveloped aerospace infrastructure. Fallows book follows the rise of this industry as a person on the ground, working for an American airplane company looking to breach into this market.
One of the common tropes of China (and possibly a true one) is that it is a country with massive amounts of development potential, waiting to be filled by eager and entrepreneurial business persons. China Airborne captures this feeling in spades, as Fallow writes a semi-biographical, semi-journalistic, semi-industry focused look at China and its airplanes. I really did not mesh with this book, however. This biographical/journalistic side very much detracted from the potential to look at China "from high" through one of its upcoming industrial fronts. A more intricate book would have examined this industry in-depth, but this short book leaves a lot to be desired, and barely scratches the surface of what it could have been. I was quite disappointed with this book. Even so, it may be recommended to those looking for an interesting or refreshing perspective on China. The aerospace industry is a niche side to examine a countries industrial policy, to be sure, but as a very brief book, this could satiate some individuals with a passing interest. Other than that, for more serious readers looking for an in-depth analysis, this book can be considered a safe pass.
One of the common tropes of China (and possibly a true one) is that it is a country with massive amounts of development potential, waiting to be filled by eager and entrepreneurial business persons. China Airborne captures this feeling in spades, as Fallow writes a semi-biographical, semi-journalistic, semi-industry focused look at China and its airplanes. I really did not mesh with this book, however. This biographical/journalistic side very much detracted from the potential to look at China "from high" through one of its upcoming industrial fronts. A more intricate book would have examined this industry in-depth, but this short book leaves a lot to be desired, and barely scratches the surface of what it could have been. I was quite disappointed with this book. Even so, it may be recommended to those looking for an interesting or refreshing perspective on China. The aerospace industry is a niche side to examine a countries industrial policy, to be sure, but as a very brief book, this could satiate some individuals with a passing interest. Other than that, for more serious readers looking for an in-depth analysis, this book can be considered a safe pass.
August 7, 2012
China's meteoric ascent from the crippling poverty of the Mao era to its current status as a still-poor but fast-growing major power is one of the major success stories of human history. Aerospace is one industry that symbolizes China's aspirations towards first-world status as well as illuminates its shortcomings, and James Fallows, whose excellent 2010 essay collection Postcards From Tomorrow Square presented many fascinating details from China's "controlled, yet chaotic" headlong pursuit of growth, is well-positioned to report on what China's attempts to cultivate a homegrown aerospace industry might mean for itself and for the world. It's difficult for Americans, most of who have never known a world where we haven't been #1 in the categories that matter, to imagine what it was like during an era comparable to where China is today. Even during our own similar period of growth in the 19th century, we were not as poor, in many ways, as much of China is now, and even during the second half of that century, when Chicago was the fastest-growing city in the world, we didn't come close to the massive movements of human beings, material goods, and capital that China has experienced for decades now. Though China is of course building many rail lines and highways to cope with the gigantic annual flows of people within its borders, it's also extremely interested in air travel as a partial solution to this and other issues. And so, as Fallows forthrightly admits, while it's impossible to really convey the scope of what's happening there, one example that comes within range of being comprehensible is their attempt to create the foundation for the kind of aerospace industry that would be familiar to Americans.
It's much more difficult than it seems. First, some statistics: Air China's market capitalization is $19 billion, more than most of the largest US airlines combined, and along with China Southern and China Eastern, China has 3 of the 4 most valuable airlines in the world. In its most recent Five Year Plan, it plans to buy 4,500 new airplanes, which is half of all new planes sold in the world over that timeframe. Beijing's airport, already the world's second-largest with 74 million passengers in 2010, is growing in traffic at 10% a year. In terms of cargo, Hong Kong and Shanghai are #1 and #3, respectively, and each is still growing at 20% a year. And this is with an air infrastructure that is shockingly primitive in many ways. China has only 175 airports, less than a fifth of the US number, and even though as part of China's attempt to race its way to world competitiveness it's embarking on a massive construction boom, developing a mature culture of airline travel is much more complicated than simply building a bunch of new megaprojects, and here is where Fallows makes many good points on the changes that China will have to undergo before it has either a domestic air travel market that's as safe, reliable, and convenient as the US, or an aerospace industry that will be able to compete in international markets with the likes of Boeing or Airbus. You can build a bunch of airports, but what about training air traffic controllers? You can build planes, but what if they have such poor reputations for safety that no one wants to buy or fly them? You can advertise cheap tickets to your new airports, but what if your Air Force has a habit of shutting down civilian airspace at will for no reason? As Fallows related, it's clear that in order to have a first-world aerospace industry, China in many ways needs a first-world culture.
To back that contention up and provide more details on the many facets of this transformation, Fallows conducts many interviews with people who are involved in its various stages, from entrepreneurs to engineers to enthusiasts. There are many interesting historical details (I had no idea that Wong Tsu, the first chief engineer at Boeing who also designed the Model C, its first plane, was Chinese), along with a lot of context. To continue the 21st century China-19th century America analogy, China wants to make a similar move up the "smiley curve" - so-called because if you draw a graph of the profit added at each stage of a product's life, the highest profit is at the two ends during the design/concept stage and the retail/sale stage, not the manufacturing/production stage in the middle - which will involve not just the familiar slow accumulation of talents and skills, but also a complete change in the way the various levels of the Chinese government do business. Currently, the Chinese government is respected for the way it has managed the country's growth over the years, but it's still arbitrary, capricious, corrupt, nepotistic, secretive, and in many ways completely unsuited to managing an aerospace sector. People simply won't fly if, in the future, an aircraft inspector is punished for exposing the flaws in a politically-powerful manufacturer's craft, and getting to that point, where China is able to truly compete with Boeing and Airbus without simply copying or stealing their designs, will require a lot of subtle but profound changes in the way the Chinese government does business. There are many interesting facts and figures in the book, but possibly my favorite moment was when an Iranian-Canadian pilot was showing a Chinese official the strengths of the American aviation market by flying him around the Statue of Liberty. It will be a long time until the Chinese government is accountable, transparent, or respects the rule of law enough to get to that point, but it will be a fascinating journey (insert the obligatory "the sky's the limit" joke), and Fallows makes an excellent guide.
It's much more difficult than it seems. First, some statistics: Air China's market capitalization is $19 billion, more than most of the largest US airlines combined, and along with China Southern and China Eastern, China has 3 of the 4 most valuable airlines in the world. In its most recent Five Year Plan, it plans to buy 4,500 new airplanes, which is half of all new planes sold in the world over that timeframe. Beijing's airport, already the world's second-largest with 74 million passengers in 2010, is growing in traffic at 10% a year. In terms of cargo, Hong Kong and Shanghai are #1 and #3, respectively, and each is still growing at 20% a year. And this is with an air infrastructure that is shockingly primitive in many ways. China has only 175 airports, less than a fifth of the US number, and even though as part of China's attempt to race its way to world competitiveness it's embarking on a massive construction boom, developing a mature culture of airline travel is much more complicated than simply building a bunch of new megaprojects, and here is where Fallows makes many good points on the changes that China will have to undergo before it has either a domestic air travel market that's as safe, reliable, and convenient as the US, or an aerospace industry that will be able to compete in international markets with the likes of Boeing or Airbus. You can build a bunch of airports, but what about training air traffic controllers? You can build planes, but what if they have such poor reputations for safety that no one wants to buy or fly them? You can advertise cheap tickets to your new airports, but what if your Air Force has a habit of shutting down civilian airspace at will for no reason? As Fallows related, it's clear that in order to have a first-world aerospace industry, China in many ways needs a first-world culture.
To back that contention up and provide more details on the many facets of this transformation, Fallows conducts many interviews with people who are involved in its various stages, from entrepreneurs to engineers to enthusiasts. There are many interesting historical details (I had no idea that Wong Tsu, the first chief engineer at Boeing who also designed the Model C, its first plane, was Chinese), along with a lot of context. To continue the 21st century China-19th century America analogy, China wants to make a similar move up the "smiley curve" - so-called because if you draw a graph of the profit added at each stage of a product's life, the highest profit is at the two ends during the design/concept stage and the retail/sale stage, not the manufacturing/production stage in the middle - which will involve not just the familiar slow accumulation of talents and skills, but also a complete change in the way the various levels of the Chinese government do business. Currently, the Chinese government is respected for the way it has managed the country's growth over the years, but it's still arbitrary, capricious, corrupt, nepotistic, secretive, and in many ways completely unsuited to managing an aerospace sector. People simply won't fly if, in the future, an aircraft inspector is punished for exposing the flaws in a politically-powerful manufacturer's craft, and getting to that point, where China is able to truly compete with Boeing and Airbus without simply copying or stealing their designs, will require a lot of subtle but profound changes in the way the Chinese government does business. There are many interesting facts and figures in the book, but possibly my favorite moment was when an Iranian-Canadian pilot was showing a Chinese official the strengths of the American aviation market by flying him around the Statue of Liberty. It will be a long time until the Chinese government is accountable, transparent, or respects the rule of law enough to get to that point, but it will be a fascinating journey (insert the obligatory "the sky's the limit" joke), and Fallows makes an excellent guide.
June 18, 2022
If you find the subject matter interesting, you’ll find the book interesting as well — a fascinating montage of stories and analysis comparing Chinese and American political economies, development trajectories, and state-society relations through the prism of their aerospace industries.
Parts of the book could have done with a bit more fleshing out, but it was thought-provoking and stimulating. Especially appreciated reading Fallows’ prognostications having seen 10 more years of the Chinese racing to catch up to Western technology in spite of more and more aggressive American countermeasures.
Inconceivable that something like the Cirrus acquisition could go through today, nor Boeing’s close and pivotal relationship with the Chinese aviation establishment.
Parts of the book could have done with a bit more fleshing out, but it was thought-provoking and stimulating. Especially appreciated reading Fallows’ prognostications having seen 10 more years of the Chinese racing to catch up to Western technology in spite of more and more aggressive American countermeasures.
Inconceivable that something like the Cirrus acquisition could go through today, nor Boeing’s close and pivotal relationship with the Chinese aviation establishment.
December 31, 2023
A decent book about the Chinese aerospace sector, "China Airborne" uses aviation as a way of unpacking China's economy and approach to business.
While the book now suffers some from being a bit dated, it does contain some timeless history. In particular, the exploration of how Boeing and others played a soft diplomatic role in helping to improve the safety of Chinese aviation systems is worth telling. In particular, there was an ongoing commitment to framing safety not as "doing the American thing" but rather "following international norms," which was a much more palatable approach to reform. In this era of brash Trumpism, it's hard to imagine these diplomatic days... but the value of this is obvious and worth remembering.
While the book now suffers some from being a bit dated, it does contain some timeless history. In particular, the exploration of how Boeing and others played a soft diplomatic role in helping to improve the safety of Chinese aviation systems is worth telling. In particular, there was an ongoing commitment to framing safety not as "doing the American thing" but rather "following international norms," which was a much more palatable approach to reform. In this era of brash Trumpism, it's hard to imagine these diplomatic days... but the value of this is obvious and worth remembering.
November 16, 2022
This was not very interesting. I love James Fallows, reminds me of a less poignant but still important Dan Rather, very gently American and cautiously hopeful. I was expecting an Our Towns version of China but it was more specifically air focused. Ultimately a read from the tipping point of China-US relations in terms of the jury still being out on whether China would try to mold the world to its vision or bend to a more free-trade / less state capitalist system. Fallows as always hopes for the best and is unsurprised by reality.
April 15, 2022
Like a really long The Atlantic article & I mean that in the best way.
If you believe that journalism is the first draft of history, there is none better the James Fallows.
Everything about how China is now a days (when this was written in 2013) is fascinating & also the system underlying modern aviation.
It made me think about aviation completely differently but also how does a country like China go from not having aviation to having it when it requires so much infrastructure.
If you believe that journalism is the first draft of history, there is none better the James Fallows.
Everything about how China is now a days (when this was written in 2013) is fascinating & also the system underlying modern aviation.
It made me think about aviation completely differently but also how does a country like China go from not having aviation to having it when it requires so much infrastructure.
Read
January 3, 2024Opportunity or threat? That's what this book boils down to, an examination of just what the government-driven and -financed economic boom in China means to the West. I warn you, there is no pat answer to the question by the end of the book, but your bewilderment will be much better informed.
Fallows writes for the Atlantic Monthly and spent six years in China "not" reporting on it (they wouldn't give him a journalist's visa so he just said he was there as a consultant). He's a private pilot and has written a lot about aviation, including a book called Free Flight, about an American aviation company that built a better plane and were then bought out by the Chinese. Here, he examines the Chinese economy through the lens of China's nascent aviation industry.
The introduction will raise the hair right up off your head, as he climbs into an airplane prefatory to flying from one Chinese town to an air show in another and serially suffers through pretty much all the problems heir to aviators in China. First no government permission to take off, then there is no fuel available, when it's found it's old Soviet fuel, which is very possibly bad fuel. Fallows writes
In pilot school, you're taught to be hyperconscious of the quality of the fuel going into the gas tank...Claeys and I rationalized that if the fuel was bad enough--who knows how long it had been in those Soviet-airplane tanks, or where else it might have been--the engine wouldn't start at all.
It does and they take off. Then their air controllers disappear on descent into their destination. And in weather, too. Yeah. That's a more interesting flight than I ever want to take, but it's pretty much the norm for private flights in China.
Because in China the PLA or People's Liberation Army has dominion over the air, with only narrow, torturous, sidewindery exceptions carved into air lanes for commercial carriers. I visited China in 2005 and I remember one approach to an airport (it might have been Turfan) (maybe) where we corkscrewed into a landing bad enough to give me a crick in my neck. The topography was flat as a pancake, mountains only a distant presence on the horizon and it was clear and calm and broad daylight, but there was no long, straight approach for us. When we flew into Beijing it was night and the approach was absolutely dark right up until we touched down, no long strips of motels and chain restaurants and car parks. Nothing like Seatac, that's for sure, and it has to be deliberate. If anyone attacks, China is hoping they get lost on the way there.
This military domination over the air has all the attendant problems one might expect (imagine if the Pentagon ruled American air space), but that's only one of the many problems Chinese aviation faces.
...building a certified commercial aircraft is much more difficult than going to the moon," [Tedjarati] said. "A moon shot is a single mission. You're sending four or five people. If the people die they become national heroes. This is so much more complicated, because you're making something for the public that they're going to be using around the world, and nothing can go wrong."
"Perhaps," Fallows writes
...the strongest and most important of these general trends in China is the sense that things are possible."
But, like building a certified commercial aircraft, it ain't gonna be easy.
[China] has yet to show comparable sophistication with the "soft" ingredients necessary for a full functioning, world-leading aerospace establishment. These include standards that apply consistently across the country, rather than depending on the whim and favor of local potentates. Or smooth, quick coordination among civil, military, and commercial organizations. Or sustaining the conditions--intellectual-property protection, reliable contract enforcement and rule of law, freedom in inquiry and expression--that allow first-rate research-and-developments institutions to thrive and to attract talent from around the world...If China can succeed fully in aerospace, then in principle there is very little it cannot do.
There are many, very well-informed doubts that it will be able to do so. But that air of possibility is infectious, and you understand why Fallows found Western pilots and mechanics crowding every airfield in China, convinced that China was the place to go to make their fortune. Everyone alive to the possibility of doing future business in China, Boeing, Airbus, the FAA, the American Chamber of Commerce, they're all in China going full throttle, doing their best to bring China into the world's aviation community.
My favorite story is of course the one about the Alaska Airline pilot who invented required navigation performance (RNP), a GPS-generated waypoint method of landing in bad weather in rough terrain. He proved it worked in Juneau, Alaska (anyone who has ever suffered through the dogleg on approach to Juneau can relate) and then sold his company. To the Chinese, of course. In China, Naverus (Navigation R Us?) plotted an approach into Linzhi, Tibet, where no other airliner or cargo plane had ever landed before. Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdSMk0... You should watch it.
Fallows writes for the Atlantic Monthly and spent six years in China "not" reporting on it (they wouldn't give him a journalist's visa so he just said he was there as a consultant). He's a private pilot and has written a lot about aviation, including a book called Free Flight, about an American aviation company that built a better plane and were then bought out by the Chinese. Here, he examines the Chinese economy through the lens of China's nascent aviation industry.
The introduction will raise the hair right up off your head, as he climbs into an airplane prefatory to flying from one Chinese town to an air show in another and serially suffers through pretty much all the problems heir to aviators in China. First no government permission to take off, then there is no fuel available, when it's found it's old Soviet fuel, which is very possibly bad fuel. Fallows writes
In pilot school, you're taught to be hyperconscious of the quality of the fuel going into the gas tank...Claeys and I rationalized that if the fuel was bad enough--who knows how long it had been in those Soviet-airplane tanks, or where else it might have been--the engine wouldn't start at all.
It does and they take off. Then their air controllers disappear on descent into their destination. And in weather, too. Yeah. That's a more interesting flight than I ever want to take, but it's pretty much the norm for private flights in China.
Because in China the PLA or People's Liberation Army has dominion over the air, with only narrow, torturous, sidewindery exceptions carved into air lanes for commercial carriers. I visited China in 2005 and I remember one approach to an airport (it might have been Turfan) (maybe) where we corkscrewed into a landing bad enough to give me a crick in my neck. The topography was flat as a pancake, mountains only a distant presence on the horizon and it was clear and calm and broad daylight, but there was no long, straight approach for us. When we flew into Beijing it was night and the approach was absolutely dark right up until we touched down, no long strips of motels and chain restaurants and car parks. Nothing like Seatac, that's for sure, and it has to be deliberate. If anyone attacks, China is hoping they get lost on the way there.
This military domination over the air has all the attendant problems one might expect (imagine if the Pentagon ruled American air space), but that's only one of the many problems Chinese aviation faces.
...building a certified commercial aircraft is much more difficult than going to the moon," [Tedjarati] said. "A moon shot is a single mission. You're sending four or five people. If the people die they become national heroes. This is so much more complicated, because you're making something for the public that they're going to be using around the world, and nothing can go wrong."
"Perhaps," Fallows writes
...the strongest and most important of these general trends in China is the sense that things are possible."
But, like building a certified commercial aircraft, it ain't gonna be easy.
[China] has yet to show comparable sophistication with the "soft" ingredients necessary for a full functioning, world-leading aerospace establishment. These include standards that apply consistently across the country, rather than depending on the whim and favor of local potentates. Or smooth, quick coordination among civil, military, and commercial organizations. Or sustaining the conditions--intellectual-property protection, reliable contract enforcement and rule of law, freedom in inquiry and expression--that allow first-rate research-and-developments institutions to thrive and to attract talent from around the world...If China can succeed fully in aerospace, then in principle there is very little it cannot do.
There are many, very well-informed doubts that it will be able to do so. But that air of possibility is infectious, and you understand why Fallows found Western pilots and mechanics crowding every airfield in China, convinced that China was the place to go to make their fortune. Everyone alive to the possibility of doing future business in China, Boeing, Airbus, the FAA, the American Chamber of Commerce, they're all in China going full throttle, doing their best to bring China into the world's aviation community.
My favorite story is of course the one about the Alaska Airline pilot who invented required navigation performance (RNP), a GPS-generated waypoint method of landing in bad weather in rough terrain. He proved it worked in Juneau, Alaska (anyone who has ever suffered through the dogleg on approach to Juneau can relate) and then sold his company. To the Chinese, of course. In China, Naverus (Navigation R Us?) plotted an approach into Linzhi, Tibet, where no other airliner or cargo plane had ever landed before. Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdSMk0... You should watch it.
May 28, 2017
Great use of the aviation industry as a vehicle for describing China's recent development. As per usual with books on modern China, it's already beginning to show its age, but still a greatly informative read about China today.
April 4, 2018
First 4/5 were an interesting look at China's aviation industry, but then devolved into generic statements on the county/culture
March 18, 2019
Excellent scholarship and fascinating subject matter. A bit scattered at times, but very good for anyone interested in China, aviation, or both.
December 6, 2019
Read it five years after it published, and yet the Chinese market is still waiting for more airspace to be opened...
November 24, 2023
Ostensibly about aviation in China, but really about China seen through aviation. Good journalism.
December 12, 2017
Using the aviation industry to examine China's rapid economic development. Many unknown facts emerge.
May 5, 2014
I am still getting ready for my upcoming trip to China so bear with me a bit. The task of getting to know China seems daunting and I have a long ways to go to understand the nation that invented large seafaring ships and the technology to print in an economical way a thousand years before anyone else, and yet chose to remain isolated rather than capitalize on these monumental feats. That China is gone. Today's China is struggling to become the behemoth that it's early advances seemed to promise. They are playing catch up and they are a major player.
I have been reading James Fallows for the greater part of my adult life, and have always found him to be interesting as a journalist. This book, an attempt to look at today's China through he microscope of their entry onto the world aviation stage is novel--I know nothing about aviation, so the divergence into areas that might seem uninteresting or repetitive to those more well versed than myself were fascinating to me.
Fallow attempts to make sense of China’s current economic challenges through the lens of this particular industry. Emphasizing the massive increase in funding for aerospace research and air travel infrastructure in China’s Twelfth Five Year Plan (2011 to 2016), Fallows argues that China’s efforts to develop domestic air travel and aerospace production represent a true test case of China’s development. He contends that, since aviation uniquely requires both “hard skills,” such as those required in manufacturing and infrastructure construction, and “soft skills,” such as smooth coordination between civil, military, and commercial organization, “if China can succeed fully in aerospace, then in principle there is very little it cannot do.
”
Fallows does an admirable job of distilling the current discordant state of the Chinese economy into engaging prose. His description of China’s addiction to infrastructure investment seems particularly prescient given the recent economic reports coming from Beijing. Moreover, the book’s discussion of China’s challenges in transforming from a producer of low-end parts to a true manufacturing power is surprisingly nuanced, with apt comparisons to economic evolutions in other nations. He offers a set of fascinating comparisons to American economic history, noting the United States’ own reputation in the 19th century as a copycat of European technology and innovation and the United States’ own struggles with outsized trade surpluses in the 1920s. Very interesting stuff. I can't wait to see it in real life.
July 13, 2014
James Fallows has long been my favorite world affairs writer, particularly about events in East Asia. It's hard to find so much important information, such measured and realistic evaluations, and such readable prose anywhere in media today. So although I know little and have never really cared to learn about civil aviation (one of Fallows' hobbies and frequent subjects,) I knew that I would learn a great deal more about the rise of modern China (another serial topic for Fallows, who lived there and in Japan for many years.)
Without losing the uninformed reader in the weeds of technical issues, Fallows uses the development and also the limitations of commercial and personal flight in China from the totalitarian and impoverished Mao years through the economic boom and rapidly shifting (in both directions) degrees of personal and economic freedom today to trace several evolutions in how China handles technology, movement, surveillance, secrecy, aspirations, discontent and relations between Chinese, the government, the military, local and foreign businesses, the press, the Internet and other nations. A key moment is Fallow's explanation for why the Chinese government may be capable of building a space program but not something so seemingly mundane as an airline or commercially competitive jet engine.
Most importantly, and rare among our reporting class, Fallows deals with ambiguity and nuance, addressing trends but also showing how they shift. Fallows highlights a number of crucial challenges that must be resolved in China today and some of the ways those resolutions could occur, towards openness, accountability and universality, or back towards closed systems, secrecy, privilege and parochial attitudes that would impede both Chinese development of advanced industries such as avionics but also China's relationship with the world and social harmony.
In short, it's about China so it's important to understanding the world of today and tomorrow, and it's by James Fallows so it's a joy to read whether you care about civilian aviation or not.
Without losing the uninformed reader in the weeds of technical issues, Fallows uses the development and also the limitations of commercial and personal flight in China from the totalitarian and impoverished Mao years through the economic boom and rapidly shifting (in both directions) degrees of personal and economic freedom today to trace several evolutions in how China handles technology, movement, surveillance, secrecy, aspirations, discontent and relations between Chinese, the government, the military, local and foreign businesses, the press, the Internet and other nations. A key moment is Fallow's explanation for why the Chinese government may be capable of building a space program but not something so seemingly mundane as an airline or commercially competitive jet engine.
Most importantly, and rare among our reporting class, Fallows deals with ambiguity and nuance, addressing trends but also showing how they shift. Fallows highlights a number of crucial challenges that must be resolved in China today and some of the ways those resolutions could occur, towards openness, accountability and universality, or back towards closed systems, secrecy, privilege and parochial attitudes that would impede both Chinese development of advanced industries such as avionics but also China's relationship with the world and social harmony.
In short, it's about China so it's important to understanding the world of today and tomorrow, and it's by James Fallows so it's a joy to read whether you care about civilian aviation or not.
Read
June 14, 2012About China Airborne: More than two-thirds of the new airports under construction today are being built in China. Chinese airlines expect to triple their fleet size over the next decade and will account for the fastest-growing market for Boeing and Airbus. But the Chinese are determined to be more than customers. In 2011, China announced its Twelfth Five-Year Plan, which included the commitment to spend a quarter of a trillion dollars to jump-start its aerospace industry. Its goal is to produce the Boeings and Airbuses of the future. Toward that end, it acquired two American companies: Cirrus Aviation, maker of the world’s most popular small propeller plane, and Teledyne Continental, which produces the engines for Cirrus and other small aircraft.
In China Airborne, James Fallows documents, for the first time, the extraordinary scale of this project and explains why it is a crucial test case for China’s hopes for modernization and innovation in other industries. He makes clear how it stands to catalyze the nation’s hyper-growth and hyper- urbanization, revolutionizing China in ways analogous to the building of America’s transcontinental railroad in the nineteenth century. Fallows chronicles life in the city of Xi’an, home to more than 250,000 aerospace engineers and assembly workers, and introduces us to some of the hucksters, visionaries, entrepreneurs, and dreamers who seek to benefit from China’s pursuit of aerospace supremacy. He concludes by examining what this latest demonstration of Chinese ambition means for the United States and the rest of the world—and the right ways to understand it.
In China Airborne, James Fallows documents, for the first time, the extraordinary scale of this project and explains why it is a crucial test case for China’s hopes for modernization and innovation in other industries. He makes clear how it stands to catalyze the nation’s hyper-growth and hyper- urbanization, revolutionizing China in ways analogous to the building of America’s transcontinental railroad in the nineteenth century. Fallows chronicles life in the city of Xi’an, home to more than 250,000 aerospace engineers and assembly workers, and introduces us to some of the hucksters, visionaries, entrepreneurs, and dreamers who seek to benefit from China’s pursuit of aerospace supremacy. He concludes by examining what this latest demonstration of Chinese ambition means for the United States and the rest of the world—and the right ways to understand it.
June 20, 2015
This is a fantastic, insightful look into aviation in China. Although they are starting way behind, China has plans to spend 'a quarter of a trillion' dollars building new airports and expanding their fleet. To that end, they've acquired 2 American companies - Cirrus (the small but fast airplane with a parachute) and Continental (aircraft engines). With their incredible size - despite the physical size of China being approximately equal to the USA, the population of China is that of the USA plus the rest of North America, Central America, Cuba and the Caribbean, South America, Japan, and Nigeria and a few million more ( a way of showing the statistics that boggles my mind) - and China's repressive government, they have the resources to advance quickly in aviation.
However, the author points out that the Chinese culture does not support the strict aviation standards and practices: their quality control is lacking as seen in many imported products and they don't adhere to the rules of replacing and regular careful inspection of aircraft parts.
General aviation will take a long time to come to China - apparently the GPS data is purposefully not accurate, as the Chinese military do not want to share map information out of a sense of national security. Another example is Google and the Chinese internet which are severely censored and filtered. These roadblocks will affect the growth of aviation and other facets of Chinese life.
However, the author points out that the Chinese culture does not support the strict aviation standards and practices: their quality control is lacking as seen in many imported products and they don't adhere to the rules of replacing and regular careful inspection of aircraft parts.
General aviation will take a long time to come to China - apparently the GPS data is purposefully not accurate, as the Chinese military do not want to share map information out of a sense of national security. Another example is Google and the Chinese internet which are severely censored and filtered. These roadblocks will affect the growth of aviation and other facets of Chinese life.
September 8, 2016
I'm not particularly interested in airplanes or air transportation, but this book is fascinating. Fallows uses all things airplane related - but especially the design and building of airplanes - as a window on China's economic development strategies and challenges. The book builds to the question, can China achieve mastery of technologically-advanced industries - not just production, but front-end innovation and design, and back end high-value branding - without significantly changing the culture of governance? That's an important question, and Fallows poses it with a lot more nuance than some other authors I've read. But in part because the answer won't really be known for quite a while, the final chapters of the book aren't nearly as interesting as Fallow's discussion of how China's economy has gotten where it is today.
The book also takes thoughtful account of the relationship between China's industrialization and environmental devastation. Airplanes, as it turns out, are a particularly good hook for this discussion, because they are disproportionately large sources of greenhouse gasses, and because specific characteristics of Chinese air policy, including requiring planes to fly low and requiring them to fly boxy, inefficient routes, result in much larger emissions that China's fleet of airplanes really needs to emit.
The book also takes thoughtful account of the relationship between China's industrialization and environmental devastation. Airplanes, as it turns out, are a particularly good hook for this discussion, because they are disproportionately large sources of greenhouse gasses, and because specific characteristics of Chinese air policy, including requiring planes to fly low and requiring them to fly boxy, inefficient routes, result in much larger emissions that China's fleet of airplanes really needs to emit.
July 11, 2012
Mr. Fallows has chosen a seemingly narrow subject, namely the rapid expansion of the aviation industry in China, but it soon becomes clear that larger issues are at the heart of his narrative: specifically China's present and future role in the international community. It is the author's contention that China can not "move up the value chain" from manufacturing and assembling components into the realm of designing high-value commodities and controlling branding without first puting in place systems that are quite foreign to their experience.
To even examine these basic issues, Mr. Fallows takes us on a whirlwind travelogue of Chinese society, industry, politics and pop culture. His boots-on-the-ground experience, and the stories of the personalities involved in trying to bring about these heretofore unprecedented changes make for a fascinatingly entertaining read. I also came away with a vastly different take on the various possibilities of China's future, and how that might affect the rest of the world than I previously had held.
I highly recommend this book. It's an easy, entertaining read that may reshape some of your suppositions about the "China question" in its many variations.
To even examine these basic issues, Mr. Fallows takes us on a whirlwind travelogue of Chinese society, industry, politics and pop culture. His boots-on-the-ground experience, and the stories of the personalities involved in trying to bring about these heretofore unprecedented changes make for a fascinatingly entertaining read. I also came away with a vastly different take on the various possibilities of China's future, and how that might affect the rest of the world than I previously had held.
I highly recommend this book. It's an easy, entertaining read that may reshape some of your suppositions about the "China question" in its many variations.
December 30, 2014
very readable intro to China
An erudite and readable writer creates a short and enjoyable look at modern China through the lens of its attempts to create a modern air travel system. After reading this I feel that my understanding of China has gone from 10th percentile to at least 50th. My main takeaways are that China is much more vast and subject to much more competing interests than I had thought before. At the economic level the government is not controlling things exactly, it really is allowing for people to pursue whatever crackpot ideas they have. But it reaffirmed what I've read in foreign policy type books, which is that the military is an incredibly powerful institution that's not willing to give up power and in aviation especially is holding China back from reaching international standards. The most interesting of Fallows' analyses is his supposition that China unlike other powers of recent centuries has not yet put forth a vision for mankind, which hampers its ability to be a true world leader. China's world outreach is entirely about China, not at all about why anyone should care on any emotional level whether the Chinese system is successful...or about what a successful Chinese system could mean for them.
An erudite and readable writer creates a short and enjoyable look at modern China through the lens of its attempts to create a modern air travel system. After reading this I feel that my understanding of China has gone from 10th percentile to at least 50th. My main takeaways are that China is much more vast and subject to much more competing interests than I had thought before. At the economic level the government is not controlling things exactly, it really is allowing for people to pursue whatever crackpot ideas they have. But it reaffirmed what I've read in foreign policy type books, which is that the military is an incredibly powerful institution that's not willing to give up power and in aviation especially is holding China back from reaching international standards. The most interesting of Fallows' analyses is his supposition that China unlike other powers of recent centuries has not yet put forth a vision for mankind, which hampers its ability to be a true world leader. China's world outreach is entirely about China, not at all about why anyone should care on any emotional level whether the Chinese system is successful...or about what a successful Chinese system could mean for them.
May 15, 2013
James Fallows writes with the authority of someone who has been living his subject. China Airborne is a recounting of Fallows's experiences living, writing and flying in China, and an analysis of Chinese capabilities and intentions. He writes that aviation is an 'apex industry' in the sense that there are so many industrial, technological and regulatory pieces that all need to align in order for a country to succeed in aviation. The Chinese government is spending by some accounts a quarter of a trillion dollars to jumpstart its aviation industry. It does indeed have tremendous will and resources but success isn't guaranteed. Based on his experiences as an expat living in China for several years, Fallows contends that success will depend on less-quantifiable factors like flexibility, accountability and openness. The Chinese system has not yet fully adopted these characteristics. Possibilities are unlimited, but the future is uncertain.
June 17, 2013
The title is subtly misleading.
Loved this book... it has been acclaimed by many and I can see why.
The author seems to speak about the potential of an aviation industry in China and how one day China may be able to make internationally acceptable commercial airliners; more than that, the author is sharply critical and questioning about the progress of China. He acknowledges all of its advances and how much the country has been able to achieve but he enlightens the reader with some of his views and makes the reader question how the progress of China will influence the world.
Standouts for me are:
How the military controls (controlled) the airspace in China in an all-encompassing absolute way
The trouble with creating an airline industry from the ground up and how it can be terribly difficult, simply because of a cultural inertia in China
How China got to buying Cirrus
And the last 2 chapters are a very sharp critique of the Chinese economic model
Loved this book... it has been acclaimed by many and I can see why.
The author seems to speak about the potential of an aviation industry in China and how one day China may be able to make internationally acceptable commercial airliners; more than that, the author is sharply critical and questioning about the progress of China. He acknowledges all of its advances and how much the country has been able to achieve but he enlightens the reader with some of his views and makes the reader question how the progress of China will influence the world.
Standouts for me are:
How the military controls (controlled) the airspace in China in an all-encompassing absolute way
The trouble with creating an airline industry from the ground up and how it can be terribly difficult, simply because of a cultural inertia in China
How China got to buying Cirrus
And the last 2 chapters are a very sharp critique of the Chinese economic model
August 15, 2014
This book looked dull as hell. There, I said it. I purposefully did not read it because of this fact, and you probably haven't (and likely won't) read it for that same reason. I am not into aviation at all, and am not totally into old white guys writing about China.
But, of course, much like his other book on the same subject...James Fallows is not just another old white guy pontificating about his year abroad. Not at all. This book ties everything together (China's development, aviation history and errata, and even what soft power means to the New China) in a way that I thought was impossible until I reached the last couple chapters. I think I actually put the book down and whispered "holy smokes he did it". Because he did do it - he made a book that surpassed everything.
So, basically:
If you care about what the world looks like these days, and like The Atlantic (the best generalization I can make about the writing), you should read this.
But, of course, much like his other book on the same subject...James Fallows is not just another old white guy pontificating about his year abroad. Not at all. This book ties everything together (China's development, aviation history and errata, and even what soft power means to the New China) in a way that I thought was impossible until I reached the last couple chapters. I think I actually put the book down and whispered "holy smokes he did it". Because he did do it - he made a book that surpassed everything.
So, basically:
If you care about what the world looks like these days, and like The Atlantic (the best generalization I can make about the writing), you should read this.
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