On the evening of Nov. 15, President Barack Obama, the youthful leader of one of the world's youngest countries, begins his first visit to China, among the world's most ancient societies. Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, have much to discuss. Nukes in Iran and North Korea. China's surging military spending. Trade imbalances. Climate change.

    But the visit comes at an awkward moment for the U.S. China, despite its 5,000-year burden of history, has emerged as a dynamo of optimism, experimentation and growth. It has defied the global economic slump, and the sense that it's the world's ascendant power has never been stronger. The U.S., by contrast, seems suddenly older and frailer. America's national mood is still in a funk, its economy foundering, its red-vs.-blue politics as rancorous as ever. The U.S. may be one of the world's oldest capitalist countries and China one of the youngest, but you couldn't blame Obama if he leaned over to Hu at some point and asked, "What are you guys doing right?"

    Could the world's lone but weary superpower actually learn something from China? It's a politically incorrect question, of course. China is an authoritarian nation; its ruling Communist Party deals ruthlessly with any challenge to its hegemony. It remains, relatively speaking, a poor, developing country with huge problems to confront, massive corruption and environmental degradation being Nos. 1 and 1a. Still, this is a moment of humility for the U.S., and China is doing some important things right. If the U.S. were to ask the Chinese what it could learn from their example, it might gain some insight into what it's doing right and wrong. Here are five lessons from China's success story:

    1. Be Ambitious

    One day this summer, Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel, was bouncing from one appointment to another in northeastern China, speeding along in a van traversing newly built highways. He gazed out at one of the world's biggest construction projects: a network of high-speed train lines - covering 10,000 miles （16,000 km） nationwide - that China is building. As far as the eye could see, there sat vast concrete support struts, one after another, exactly 246 ft. （75 m） apart. Each was full of steel cables and weighed about 800 tons. "We used to build stuff too," Maloney mused, unprompted. "But now it's NIMBY [not in my backyard] every time you try to do something. Here," he joked, "it's more like IMBY. There's stuff happening here, everywhere and always."

    It's not just NIMBYism that constrains the U.S. these days, of course. America is close to tapped out financially, with budget deficits this year and next exceeding $1 trillion and forecast to remain above $500 billion through 2019. But sometimes the country seems tapped out in terms of vision and investment for the future.

    Some economists believe that given its stage of development, China spends too much on expensive items like high-speed rail lines. But step back from the individual infrastructure projects and the debates about whether a given investment is necessary, and what's palpable in China is the sense of forward motion, of energy. No foreigner - at least not one I've met in five years of living here - even bothers denying it. And the Chinese take it for granted. When a brand-new six-lane highway opened in suburban Shanghai in October, Zhong Li Ping, who shuttles migrant workers to the city and back to their hometowns, said, "I don't know what took them so long." In truth, it took about two years - roughly the time it would take to get the environmental and other regulatory permits for a new highway in the U.S. If, that is, you could get them at all.

    There's no direct translation into Chinese of the phrase can-do spirit. But yong wang zhi qian probably suffices. Literally, it means "march forward courageously." China has - and has had for years now - a can-do spirit that's unmistakable. Americans know the phrase well. They invented it. It used to define them.

    Critics of the authoritarian Chinese government would say it's a system more accurately called "can do - or else." And they have a point. No one in the U.S. would argue that it should adopt China's dictatorial style of government. America doesn't need to displace tens of thousands of people in order to build a massive dam, as China did in Hubei province from 1994 to 2006. （The value of checks and balances is, in fact, among the many things China could learn from the U.S.） But you don't have to be a card-carrying communist to wonder how effectively the U.S. develops and executes ambitious projects. Ask James McGregor. He's a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and now a business consultant who divides his time between the two countries. "One key thing we can learn from China is setting goals, making plans and focusing on moving the country ahead as a nation," he says. "These guys have taken the old five-year plans and stood them on their head. Instead of deciding which factory gets which raw materials, which products are made, how they are priced and where they are sold, their planning now consists of 'How do we build a world-class silicon-chip industry in five years? How do we become a global player in car-manufacturing?'"

    ome of this is the natural arc of a huge, fast-growing country in the process of modernization. The U.S. in the late 19th century was nothing if not what Intel's Maloney would call an IMBY country. America was ambitious. There's no secret formula to help the nation get back its zeal for what it used to enthusiastically and sincerely call progress. But even though the U.S. is a mature, developed country, many economists believe it has shortchanged infrastructure investment for decades. It possibly did so again in this year's stimulus package. Just $144 billion of the $787 billion stimulus bill Congress passed earlier this year went to direct infrastructure spending. According to IHS Global Insight, an economic-consulting firm, U.S. spending on transportation infrastructure will actually decline overall in 2009 when state budgets are factored in - this at a time when the American Society of Civil Engineers contends that the U.S. should invest $1.6 trillion to upgrade its aging infrastructure over the next five years.

    When the economic crisis hit China late last year, by contrast, almost half of the emergency spending Beijing approved - $585 billion spread over two years - was directed at projects that accelerated China's massive infrastructure build-out. "That money went into the real economy very quickly," says economist Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

    But it's not just emergency spending on bridges, roads and high-speed rail networks that's helping growth in China. Patrick Tam, general partner at Tsing Capital, a venture-capital firm in Beijing, says the government is aggressively helping seed the development of new green-tech industries. An example: 13 of China's biggest cities will have all-electric bus fleets within five years. "China is eventually going to dominate the industry for electric vehicles," Tam says, "in part because the central government has both the vision and the financial wherewithal to make that happen." Tam, a graduate of MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, says he does deals in Beijing rather than Silicon Valley these days "because I believe this is where these new industries will really take shape. China's got the energy, the drive and the market to do it." Isn't that the sort of thing venture capitalists used to say about the U.S.?

    2. Education Matters

    On a recent Saturday afternoon, at a nice restaurant in central Shanghai, Liu Zhi-he sat fidgeting at the table, knowing that it was about time for him to leave. All around him sat relatives from an extended family that had gathered for a momentous occasion: the 90th birthday of Liu's great-grandmother Ling Shu Zhen, the still spry and elegant matriarch of a sprawling clan. But Liu had to leave because it was time for him to go to school. This Saturday, as he does every Saturday, Liu was attending two special classes. He takes a math tutorial, and he studies English.

    Liu is 7 years old.

    A lot of foreigners - and, indeed, a fair number of Chinese - believe that the obsession （and that's the right word） with education in China is overdone. The system stresses rote memorization. It drives kids crazy - aren't 7-year-olds supposed to have fun on Saturday afternoons? - and doesn't necessarily prepare them, economically speaking, for the job market or, emotionally speaking, for adulthood. Add to that the fact that the system, while incredibly competitive, has become corrupt.

    All true - and all, for the most part, beside the point. After decades of investment in an educational system that reaches the remotest peasant villages, the literacy rate in China is now over 90%. （The U.S.'s is 86%.） And in urban China, in particular, students don't just learn to read. They learn math. They learn science. As William McCahill, a former deputy chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, says, "Fundamentally, they are getting the basics right, particularly in math and science. We need to do the same. Their kids are often ahead of ours."

    What the Chinese can teach are verities, home truths that have started to make a comeback in the U.S. but that could still use a push. The Chinese understand that there is no substitute for putting in the hours and doing the work. And more than anything else, the kids in China do lots of work. In the U.S., according to a 2007 survey by the Department of Education, 37% of 10th-graders in 2002 spent more than 10 hours on homework each week. That's not bad; in fact, it's much better than it used to be （in 1980 a mere 7% of kids did that much work at home each week）. But Chinese students, according to a 2006 report by the Asia Society, spend twice as many hours doing homework as do their U.S. peers.

    Part of the reason is family involvement. Consider Liu, the 7-year-old who had to leave the birthday party to go to Saturday school. Both his parents work, so when he goes home each day, his grandparents are there to greet him and put him through his after-school paces. His mother says simply, "This is normal. All his classmates work like this after school."

    Yes, big corporate employers in China will tell you the best students coming out of U.S. universities are just as bright as and, generally speaking, far more creative than their counterparts from China's élite universities. But the big hump in the bell curve - the majority of the school-age population - matters a lot for the economic health of countries. Simply put, the more smart, well-educated people there are - of the sort that hard work creates - the more economies （and companies） benefit. Remember what venture capitalist Tam said about China and the electric-vehicle industry. A single, relatively new company working on developing an electric-car battery - BYD Co. - employs an astounding 10,000 engineers.

    China, critics will point out, doesn't produce （at least not yet） many Nobel Prize winners. But don't think the basic educational competence of the workforce isn't a key factor in its having become the manufacturing workshop of the world. It isn't just about cheap labor; it's about smart labor. "Whether it's line workers or engineers, we're finding the candlepower of our employees here as good as or better than anywhere in the world," says Nick Reilly, a top executive at General Motors in Shanghai. "It all starts with the emphasis families put on the importance of education. That puts pressure on the government to deliver a decent system."

    And the Chinese government responds to that pressure in some intriguing ways. It insists that primary-school teachers in math and science have degrees in those subjects. （Less than half of eighth-grade math teachers in the U.S. majored in math.） There is a "master teacher" program nationwide that provides mentoring for younger teachers. Zhang Dianzhou, a professor emeritus of mathematics at East China Normal University in Shanghai who co-chaired a committee charged with redesigning high school mathematics programs across the country, says recent changes have begun to reflect more of a "real-world emphasis." Computer-science courses, for example, have been integrated into the math curriculum for high school students. And China is placing even more importance on teaching young students English and other foreign languages. If you think China's willingness to constantly fine-tune its educational system is not going to have much of an impact 20 years from now, there's a 7-year-old boy in Shanghai who'd be happy to discuss the issue with you. In English.

    3. Look After the Elderly

    it's hard to imagine two societies that deal with their elderly as differently as the U.S. and China. And I can vouch for that firsthand. My wife Junling is a Shanghai native, and last month for the first time we visited my father at a nursing home in the U.S. She was shaken by the experience and later told me, "You know, in China, it's a great shame to put a parent into a nursing home." In China the social contract has been straightforward for centuries: parents raise children; then the children care for the parents as they reach their dotage. When, for example, real estate developer Jiang Xiao Li and his wife recently bought a new, larger apartment in Shanghai, they did so in part because they know that in a few years, his parents will move in with them. Jiang's parents will help take care of Jiang's daughter, and as they age, Jiang and his wife will help take care of them. As China slowly develops a better-funded and more reliable social-security system for retirees - which it has begun - the economic necessity of generations living together will diminish a bit. But no one believes that as China gets richer, the cultural norm will shift too significantly.

    To a degree, of course, three generations living under one roof has long happened in the U.S., but in the 20th century, America became a particularly mobile and rootless society. It is hard to care for one's parents when they live three time zones away.

    Home care for the elderly will most likely make a comeback in the U.S. out of sheer economic necessity, however. The number of elderly Americans will soar from 38.6 million in 2007 to 71.5 million in 2030. But, says Arnold Eppel, who recently retired as head of the department of aging in Baltimore County, Maryland, "There won't be enough spots for them" in the country's overwhelmed nursing-home system. Appreciating the magnitude of the coming crisis, the U.S. government has begun to respond. Two new initiatives - Nursing Home Diversion and Money Follows the Person - expand subsidies for home elder care, and the Veterans Health Administration has just put in effect its own similar initiative. "The whole trend will be into home care, because nursing homes are too expensive," Eppel says, noting that nursing-home care in the U.S. costs about $85,000 annually per resident.

    In China, senior-care costs are, for the most part, borne by families. For millions of poor Chinese, that's a burden as well as a responsibility, and it unquestionably skews both spending and saving patterns in ways that China needs to change （see Save More, below）. For middle-class and rich Chinese, those costs are a more manageable responsibility but one that nonetheless ripples through their economic decision-making. Still, there are benefits that balance the financial hardship: grandparents tutor young children while Mom and Dad work; they acculturate the youngest generation to the values of family and nation; they provide a sense of cultural continuity that helps bind a society. China needs to make obvious changes to its elder-care system as it becomes a wealthier society, but as millions of U.S. families make the brutal decision about whether to send aging parents into nursing homes, a bigger dose of the Chinese ethos may well be returning to America.

    4. Save More

    You've now heard it so many times, you can probably repeat it in your sleep. President Obama will no doubt make the point publicly when he gets to Beijing: the Chinese need to spend more; they need to consume more; they need - believe it or not - to become more like Americans, for the sake of the global economy.

    And it's all true. But the other side of that equation is that the U.S. needs to save more. For the moment, American households actually are doing so. After the personal-savings rate dipped to zero in 2005, the shock of the economic crisis last year prompted people to snap shut their wallets. Now that it's pouring, in other words, American households have decided to save for a rainy day. The savings rate is currently about 4% and has gone as high as 6% this year.

    In China, the household-savings rate exceeds 20%. It is partly for straightforward policy reasons. As we've seen, wage earners are expected to care for not only their children but also their aging parents. And there is, to date, only the flimsiest of publicly funded health care and pension systems, which increases incentives for individuals to save while they are working. But China, like many other East Asian countries, is a society that has esteemed personal financial prudence for centuries. There is no chance that will change anytime soon, even if the government creates a better social safety net and successfully encourages greater consumer spending.

    Why does the U.S. need to learn a little frugality? Because healthy savings rates, including government and business savings, are one of the surest indicators of a country's long-term financial health. High savings lead, over time, to increased investment, which in turn generates productivity gains, innovation and job growth. In short, savings are the seed corn of a good economic harvest.

    The U.S. government thus needs to get in on the act as well. By running perennial deficits, it is dis-saving, even as households save more. Peter Orszag, Obama's Budget Director, recently called the U.S. budget deficits unsustainable - this year's is $1.4 trillion - and he's right. To date, the U.S. has seemed unable to have what Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has called an "adult conversation" about the consequences of spending so much more than is taken in. That needs to change. And though Hu Jintao and the rest of the Chinese leadership aren't inclined to lecture visiting Presidents, he might gently hint that Beijing is getting a little nervous about the value of the dollar - which has fallen 15% since March, in large part because of increasing fears that America's debt load is becoming unmanageable.

    That's what happens when you're the world's biggest creditor: you get to drop hints like that, which would be enough by themselves to create international economic havoc if they were ever leaked. （Every time any official in Beijing muses publicly about seeking an alternative to the U.S. dollar for the $2.1 trillion China holds in reserve, currency traders have a heart attack.） If Americans became a bit more like the Chinese - if they saved more and spent less, consistently over time - they wouldn't have to worry about all that.

    5. Look over the Horizon

    The energy that so many outsiders feel when they are in China and that President Obama may see when he is there comes not just from the frenetic activity that is visible everywhere. It comes also from a sense that it's harnessed to something bigger. The government isn't frantically building all this infrastructure just to create make-work jobs. And kids aren't studying themselves sleepless because it's a lot of fun. A few years ago, I interviewed Zhang Xin, a young man from a deeply poor agricultural province in central China. His parents were wheat farmers and lived in a tiny one-room house next to the fields. He had graduated from Tsinghua University - China's MIT - and gotten a job as a software engineer at Huawei, the Cisco of China. His success, Zhang told me one day, had changed his family forever. None of his descendants would "ever work in the wheat fields again. Not my children. Not their children. That life is over." （And neither would his parents. They moved to prosperous Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong, soon after he started his new job.）

    Multiply that young man's story by millions, and you get a sense of what a forward-looking country this once very backward society has become. A smart American who lived in China for years and who wants to avoid being identified publicly （perhaps because he'd be labeled a "panda hugger," the timeworn epithet tossed at anyone who has anything good to say about China） puts it this way: "China is striving to become what it has not yet become. It is upwardly mobile, consciously, avowedly and - as its track record continues to strengthen - proudly so."

    Proudly so, because as Zhang understood, hard work today means a much better life decades from now for those who will inherit what he helped create. And if that sounds familiar to Americans - marooned, for the moment, in the deepest recession in 26 years - it should.

    11月15日晚上，奧巴馬總統，世界上最年輕國家之一的最年輕的領導人，在世界最古老社會之一的中國開始了首次訪問。奧巴馬和中國國家主席胡錦濤有很多主題可討論；伊朗和朝鮮的核武、中國軍費開支的激增、貿易的不平衡、及全球氣候的變異。

    但對美國來說此次訪問不無尷尬。中國，盡管背負了5000年的歷史重擔，已成為全球樂觀，試驗和發展的動力；無視全球的經濟蕭條，仍亟於成為世界方興未艾的權力中心。美國則正好相反，似乎突顯老態頹唐。美國整體情緒仍然畏縮，經濟衰沉，紅藍營政治交惡仍纏斗不清。美國可能是世界上最古老的資本主義國家，而中國則是最年輕的。但如奧巴馬對胡錦濤拋媚撒嬌，偷問："你老兄是如何作到的？" 實則乃不得已。

    難道世界上唯一但已顯疲憊的超級大國負屐求教於中國？自然這是一個不該問的政治問題。中國是一個專制國家，執政的共產黨無情地處理任何對其霸權的挑戰；但相對來說，仍是一個貧窮且面對許多巨大問題的發展中國家，廣面的腐敗和環境圬染是其首要和次首要問題。不過，這正是美國應謙卑的時刻，中國重大國策正確。如果美國求教中國，可能能深入了解美國自身的正確和錯誤之處。這里列有5項中國成功實例可茲為教訓：

    1. 不折騰的魄力

    今夏某日，英特爾公司的執行副總裁馬宏升，在中國東北周轉於約會之間，當駕座快速地穿越新建的公路時，看到一個世界上最大建設之一的項目：即中國正在建設中的覆蓋全中國 10000英里（16,000公里）的高速列車線路網絡。極眼所盡，大量的混凝土支柱，每 246英尺（75米）一個接一個。每一個覆滿重約 800噸的鋼纜。"我們過去也建東西",馬洛尼不覺得沉思。"但是每次你想做些事情的時候，鄰避【不是在我家后院 --》環境正義的利己主義】總是使得百興成廢。在這里，"他開玩笑說，"這里更像鄰逼【在我家后院-》環境正義利己主義的反義】。處處蓬勃，無處不是，永無歇止。"

    不僅僅是鄰避思想內損了美國。美國正瀕臨破產，今明年預算赤字超過 $1萬億美元，2019年持續高于 $5000億美元。而且似乎也乏匱遠景和對未來的投資。

    一些經濟學家認為，鑒于它的發展階段，中國在高成本設施上花費太多，如高速鐵路（列車）線。不過自個別基礎設施項目評估和是否是必要的投資上退一步來看，無法忽視中國前進動感的能量。沒有外國人 - 至少在我這5年中沒有碰到一個 - 甚至會否認這點。而中國人本身也認為是這樣。當 10月分一條全新的六車道高速公路在上海郊區啟用，往載民工於城市家鄉的鍾立平說："我不知道為何等了這么久".事實上，費時兩年 - 大致是在美國為新公路處理環境和辦理其他行政許可所費的時間。當然是如果一切順利的話。

    "Can-do" 精神沒有直接的翻譯。但勇望直前可概其意。從字面上看，它的意思的確是 "勇往直前".這是中國 - 而且已經多年了 - 具有的做事精神，這是明確無誤的。美國人也知道這句話。是他們發明的。過去用來定義美國。

    對中國的獨裁，批評者會說這是一個 "為或不為" 的系統，此自有其理。美國沒有任何人會認為應采取中國政府的獨斷。美國并不需要像中國在 1994年至 2006年間，在湖北省動員數萬人以建立龐大的大壩。（在制衡的取舍上，其中許多方面中國可以向美國學習） 不必成為載信用卡的共產黨才能了解美國如何有效地開發和執行雄心勃勃的項目。此可請教詹姆斯麥格雷戈；前美國商會在中國的主席，現為商業顧問。現在中國和美國間作空中飛人。"我們可以借鑒中國的是目標確定，制定計劃和整體動員",他說。"他們采取舊的五年計劃，并貫徹執行，并非是那些工廠應獲得何種原料，何種產品，如何定價和銷售的微觀細節，而是 '我們如何在 5年內建立一個世界級的硅芯片產業？我們如何成為一個汽車制造的全球玩家？"

    這是快速增長的國家的現代化進程中一個高峰。19世紀末美國如非如英特爾馬洛尼所說的發起了全國動員，否則會是不足為取。那時的美國是雄心勃勃的。沒有其他的秘方能再激勵起過去那熱情和真誠地所謂的要進步的狂熱。但是，即使是美國，一個成熟已發展的國家，許多經濟學家認為，已缺乏了幾十年的基礎設施投資。現況在今年的經濟刺激計劃中仍未被改善。今年年初國會通過的 $7878億美元的刺激法案中，只有 $1440億美元直接撥給基礎設施開支。據經濟咨詢公司 IHS Global Insight,美國對交通基礎設施投資的國家預算，實際上在 2009年全面下降 - 這與美國土木工程師協會所建議的，在未來5年內，美國應投資 $1.6萬億美元來提升已老化的基礎設施，正好相反。

    當經濟危機沖擊的中國在去年年底反行其道，北京針對加速中國大規模基礎設施建設項目，批準了近兩年半的 $5,850億美元緊急支出。"這錢迅速的注入了經濟",卡內基國際和平基金會經濟學家阿爾伯特凱德爾指出。

    中國的成長并非僅來自橋梁，道路和高速鐵路網的緊急開支。青風險資本投資公司北京的合伙人譚家明認為，政府正積極幫助資助發展綠色高新技術產業。舉個例子：五年內 13個中國最大的城市將會具備全電動巴士車隊。" 中國最終會成電動車輛產業的主導地位",譚說，"部分原因是中央政府的遠見和已有的財力能成就這種局勢".畢業於麻省理工學院和加州大學伯克利分校的譚又說，他現在北京而不是硅谷處理業務，"因為我相信這里才是這新產業的真正孕育之地。中國已具有了這種能量，動力和市場".難道這不是曾幾何時風險資本家對美國所說的嗎？

    2. 作育英才

    最近的一個周六下午，一間位於上海城中的好餐館，劉織坐立不安地知道已是他要離別的時候。所有的家族成員為了這重要時刻聚集在他身邊：這是劉的仍輕快優雅的女族長曾祖母泠淑珍90歲的生日。但是，劉不得不離開，因為他要上學。這星期六，就如每個周六，劉需上兩個特別班；數學和英語。

    劉只有7歲。

    很多外國人 - 以及相當多的中國人 - 認為中國人對教育過分執著（一語中地）.教育系統強調死記硬背，快把孩子們逼瘋了 - 不是7歲的孩子應該有個快樂的周末下午嗎？ - 從經濟上講，準備就業市場過早；從感情上來說，要作成年教育尚未到時候。更有甚者，這制度已造成畸形競爭，背離根本意義。

    這都是真的 - 但都扯遠離題了！經過幾十年的教育投資，含蓋偏遠的鄉村農民，中國的識字率已超過 90%.（美國 86%）在中國城市，學生尤其不只是學習閱讀；他們學數學，他們學科學。正如前美國駐北京大使館執行使命的副局長威廉麥卡希爾所說："基本上，他們是對的，特別是在數學和科學的基本教育上。我們也必須這樣做。他們的孩子往往超越我們的。"

    中國教育要務實，這在美國也是正卷土重來，但仍可加把勁。中國人了解，一分耕耘一分收獲。更重要的事，中國的孩子們很努力。在美國，據教育部 2007年的調查，37% 十年級的學生，在2002年每周花在家庭作業的時間超過 10小時。這并不是壞事，事實上，它明顯優于以往的（在1980年只有將近 7%的孩子每周投入相當的時間）.但中國學生，據亞洲協會 2006年的報告，比美國的同年級花兩倍的時間做功課。

    部分原因是家庭的參與。像7歲的劉，不得不離開生日聚會去上周六特班。其父母都在上班，所以當他每天回家，是他的祖父母接他并督促放學后的作業。他母親簡單地說，"這是正常的。他所有的同學放學后都是這樣。"

    這是事實，中國大企業的雇主會告訴你，一般來說，美國大學最好的學生一樣的靈光，但創造性卻遠遠超過中國的名牌大學的同行。重要的是 - 受教育的人數 - 左右國家的經濟發展。簡單地說，聰明，受過良好教育的人越多 - 努力工作的 - 經濟（和公司）受益越多。這是風險資本家譚對中國的電動車業的評估。一個私人，開發電動車電池相當新的公司 - 比亞迪 - 聘用了驚人的 10000位工程師。

    中國，批評者會指出，還沒有培養出（至少目前還沒有）許多諾貝爾獎得主。但不要認為其具基本勞動人口的教育能力不是使其成為世界制造工業龍頭的關鍵因素。這不是廉價的勞動力，而是智能勞動力。"無論是一線工人或工程師，我們發現我們的員工素質優于世界任何地方",上海通用汽車公司高層管理人員尼克賴利說。 "這一切都始于家庭注重教育的重要性。這給政府施加壓力，以提供完善的制度。"

    而中國政府以有趣的方式對這些施加的壓力作出回應。它堅持認為，小學數學和科學教師必需具有學科學位。（而在美國只有不到一半的八年級數學教師主修數學。）有"主任教師"計劃對全國年輕教師提供指導。共同負責主持重新設計全國高中數學項目委員會的東中國上海師范大學數學名譽教授張奠宙說，近期的改革是在反映"強調實務".計算機科學課程，例如，已被納入了高中學生的數學課程。而中國目前非常重視青年學生的英語和其他外國的教學。如果你懷疑中國不斷地調整其教育系統的意愿對20年后的未來不會影響深遠，有一個7歲的上海男孩將會很樂意的與您討論。用英語。

    3. 老有所養

    很難想象美國和中國這兩個社會對年老問題不同的處理。我可以保證這第一手資料。我的妻子嶺是上海本地人，上個月我們第一次看望在美國療養院我的父親。她后來告訴我震驚的經驗，"你知道，在中國，把父母放到療養院是一大恥辱".在中國這習性已好幾世紀：父母養育子女，然后孩子照顧老年的父母。例如，房地產開發商姜西鏖和夫人最近在上海買了一個新的更大的公寓，他們如此作的部分原因是因為他們知道，幾年后，他的父母會搬來一起住。他們的父母會幫忙照顧江的女兒，當他們年老，江和夫人將照顧他們。隨著中國逐漸發展對退休人員更好的資助和可靠的社會保障系統 - 已經開始 -經濟的必要性會促使數代同堂的生活方式慢慢消失。但是，沒有人認為，隨著中國越來越富裕，文化規范也會顯著改變。

    在一定程度上，當然，美國三代同堂未少其例。但自20世紀，美國特別成為移動和無根的社會。很難照顧三個時區外地父母的生活。

    但是純基于經濟上的需要，在家照顧老人將可能使在美國卷土重來。在老年人口將從2007年的3860萬升至2030年的7150萬。不過，最近馬利蘭州巴爾的摩縣老齡部門退休的負責人阿諾德艾派爾說，"我們將不會有足夠療養院來收容他們".面對即將到來的危機的嚴重性，美國政府已經開始作出反應。兩項新措施 - 護養院輸導及錢跟人 - 增加家庭照顧老人補助，退伍軍人衛生管理局剛也落實類似的舉措。 "整個趨勢將成為家庭護理，因為養老院費用太昂貴",艾派爾說。美國養老院的成本約為每人每年$8.5萬美元。

    在中國，老年人護理費用，大多是由家庭承擔。對于數以百萬計的貧民，作為一種責任，這是一種負擔。這會無疑地影響到中國需要改變節省開支的方式和模式（見節省更多，下面）.對于中產階級和富有的中國人，這些費用是一個易于掌控的責任。盡管如此，仍然會影響到一般的經濟決策。不過，也有利於平衡財政的困難：祖父母照顧幼兒，而父母親工作。他們重視年輕一代對家庭和國家的價值，而采取了一個對社會合諧有益的文化連續性方式。對即將成為一個富裕的社會，中國對老年人的照顧體系，需要作出明顯的調整。但在當美國數百萬家庭面對是否將年邁的父母送入養老院的泠酷決定時，中華民族傳統的社會思潮可能返饋成修正美國風氣的良劑。

    4. 積谷防饑

    這已是老生常談，即使午夜夢回也能背出。奧巴馬總統無疑會在北京公開這觀點：中國需要促進消費。他們需要中國人 - 信不信由你 - 變得更像美國人，為了全球的經濟利益。（丑陋的美國人）

    而且這都是事實。但另一方面是，美國人需要增加儲蓄。目前，美國家庭確實是正在做。2005年個人儲蓄率降至零。去年的經濟危機沖擊，促使人們鎖緊錢包。現在，已成滂沛成潮，也就是說，美國家庭已決定積谷防饑。儲蓄率目前約為 4%,今年并一度高至 6%.

    在中國的家庭儲蓄率超過20%.這與政策有直接原因。正如我們所看到的，打工仔不僅需照顧他們的子女，并且他們的年邁父母。還有就是，迄今為止，只有政府資助的衛生保健和養老金制度，增加工作個人的儲蓄。但中國，像其他許多東亞國家，是一個具有數百年崇高的個人審慎理財的社會，即使政府設立好的社會安全系統，并成功地鼓勵更多的消費支出，也不太可能改其根本。

    為什么美國需要學習節儉一點？因為健康儲蓄率，包括政府和企業，是一個國家的長期財政健康的最可靠指標之一。高儲蓄率領先，隨著時間的推移，能增加投資，從而產生生產力，創新和就業增長。總之，儲蓄是一個經濟豐收的根本。

    美國政府因此需要同時策力。常年赤字，即使家庭節省更多，儲蓄也是負的。彼得奧爾扎格，奧巴馬的預算主任，最近稱美國的預算赤字不可持續的 - 今年的1.4萬億美元 - 他是對的。截至目前，美國似乎仍無法像印第安那州州長丹尼爾斯所說的"成人交談"來面對入不敷出的后果。這需要修正。此外，盡管胡錦濤和中國其他領導人并不傾向于對來訪的總統說教，他可能會溫柔地暗示，北京對美元的價值還是有點感冒 - 自3月已經下降了15%,在很大程度上是因為越來越擔心美國的債務負擔變得無法控制。

    這就是世界上最大債權國的效力：這樣的暗示一旦泄漏，就足以造成國際經濟動蕩。（每一次北京官方的任何若有所思公開談論尋求2.1萬億美元儲備的替代美元，就使貨幣交易者們心驚膽顫。）如果美國人變得更像中國人 - 節省多花費少，假以時日 - 他們不用再擔心這些。

    5. 高瞻遠矚

    外人在中國所感到的能量，奧巴馬總統來時可能也有感，隨處可見的蓬勃泱然并非只是來自於狂熱。

    更可感到更大的發展正在蘊釀。政府極力的打造這些基礎設施并非只為了創造工作。孩子們不睡覺的苦讀是因為對未來樂觀的憧憬。幾年前，我采訪了張欣，一個來自中國中部農業大省非常貧窮的年輕人。

    他的雙親是小麥農民，以田邊小房為居。他畢業于清華大學 - 中國的麻省理工學院 - 在中國的思科 - 華為作軟件工程師。張有一天告訴我，他的成功，已經永遠改變了他的家人。他的子孫都不會"再種麥田了。他的孩子，他孩子的孩子。這種生活已遠去。" （而且，在開始了他的新工作不久，包栝他的父母，他們都搬到香港北部的繁榮深圳。）

    將年輕人的故事以數百萬計，你會意識到這個曾經非常落后的社會已經蛻變成極具前瞻的國家。一位在中國生活多年不想被公開（因為不想被灌上"熊貓擁抱者"- 親中國的老綽號）聰明的美國人說："中國正努力的在成其大成。機動地向上，自覺，求是 - 處顯成果，并自豪。"

    是這樣的自豪。因為張了解，現在的辛勤工作正是在為幾十年后更美好的未來筑基。如果美國人聽來感到熟悉 - 孤芳自賞，就目前而言，處在近26年來最嚴重的蕭條 - 此乃必然。