If you followed American media in recent years, you might have thought China was taking over the planet. Recent titles at the book store have included Becoming China's Bitch and When China Rules the World.
"They are the world's superpower or soon will be," Glenn Beck used to intone on Fox News. "They always thought America was just a blip."
And when the city of Philadelphia postponed an Eagles football game a couple of years ago because of a blizzard forecast, then-Gov. Ed Rendell said America — unlike China — was becoming a nation of "wussies."
"If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game?" Rendell asked. "People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down."
But China always looks more impressive from afar than it does close up.
The government in Beijing is targeting the economy to grow at 7.5 percent this year – well below the nearly 10.5 percent average growth of the previous decade.