One of my major points is that propaganda heavily uses dichotomies and narratives. This picture shows both.

For most of the 20th centuries, many Americans looked at China with either condescension or contempt. It was a backwards land, and the idea of it even competing with America was ridiculous. Now, within the past ten years or so, we have the myth of China as technical super-marvel, with children who are uniformly brilliant, churning out technical marvels and high tech wizardry. Meanwhile, America is an underdeveloped country.

Like most narratives and dichotomies, it isn't true, the truth is somewhere inbetween. China was never as backwards as American arrogance had it, and it is not as space-age as our fears would have it. The pictures taken here are a good example: a very new looking  Chinese train, coupled with an old looking American train.

I am not an expert on Chinese rail transport, but I did look it up on wikipedia and see that only 10% of China's rail network is suitable for high speed trains. When you compare the top 10 or 30% of China's accomplishments with the bottom 10 or 30% of America's accomplishments, we look pretty bad. Go and ride a passenger train in rural Hunan province, and we might start looking better.