And a half hour later you are hungry again
(Via Daily Pundit) Joshua Kurlantzick asks in the New Republic, Is China's Economic Boom A Myth?:

Look closely at the Chinese economy, and you'll find a far less rosy situation than that portrayed in most of the business press. The country's growth rates are vastly overstated, the result of cooked books and massive deficit spending. Companies selling to the Chinese market--foreign and domestic alike--are struggling just to break even. The economy is plagued by persistent deflation and a useless banking system. "Businesspeople have created a lemming effect," says Graeme Maxton, a specialist on China's auto industry. "They have convinced themselves they have to be in China or their competitors will overtake them, so they ignore economic fundamentals." The Chinese economic miracle, in other words, is largely a house of cards. And, when it falls, the consequences could be catastrophic.
...
In private, and when speaking to certain domestic reporters, even China's leaders admit the fix is in. When Rawski and other leading economists chat with official statisticians in Beijing, they often hear that no one in the government believes recent GDP numbers. "American economists are going around the U.S. praising China's economy, and when I come to Beijing the people there are vastly more pessimistic," says Rawski. A cursory glance at Chinese-language newspapers over the past five years turns up reams of stories vastly different from those in the gushing foreign press--articles about economic stagnation, falling wages, and deflation. (Though the Chinese press is still censored, it has grown more open in recent years, and some groundbreaking publications like Caijing and Southern Weekend regularly print information that reflects poorly on China.) Even top officials know China overstates the figures. In 2000, former premier Zhu Rongji, the straightest-talking mandarin in Beijing, warned that "falsification and exaggeration of statistics are rampant."
...
A similarly dour picture emerges when one investigates the operations of some of the large multinationals and domestic companies targeting the Chinese market. Many Fortune 500 firms tout their China divisions as linchpins of corporate growth--and it's true that some foreign companies such as Motorola have gained a significant market share selling to China. But, this summer, when I contacted nearly 40 major multinationals that focus on the Chinese consumer market, only two--brewing giant SABMiller and fast-food titan Yum! Brands (parent of KFC and Pizza Hut)--were willing to provide even basic information about their China revenues. "If any of these foreign companies were making money in China, they would be talking about it constantly," says Studwell. He believes that less than 10 percent of foreign companies selling to China are reaping profits, a view shared by several other leading China specialists. (Companies that use China as a platform for manufacturing and exporting are a different story: Many have prospered.) The rest, Studwell says, have expanded too quickly, overestimating China's growth and the true number of potential consumers. Recently, as unemployment rises, personal consumption is actually falling.

But what happens if it goes south?

But, in the future, China's growing economic weakness could force its latent anger at the United States to the surface. Already, Beijing stokes anti-Americanism in order to deflect criticism of its own actions and expends little effort explaining its relationship with the United States to its people. Imams in Xinjiang, a Muslim province in western China that I visited this September, have been forced to attend "reeducation sessions" laced with anti-American propaganda. Party-controlled media companies have produced popular videos glorifying the September 11 attacks. In one video, as the camera focuses on the rubble of the World Trade Center, a commentator says, "Blood debts have been repaid in blood. ... This is the America the whole world has wanted to see."

Sounds like they're our pals, fer sure. Much more in the full article.