More to China than meets eye

My son has been eyeing possible job opportunities in Beijing, which horrifies his mother, who conjures up visions of an overcrowded, polluted police state.

- BRENDAN SEERY

Actually, not that dissimilar from my view of China, which has been conditioned by decades of Western media consumption.

For the past fortnight, I have been watching YouTube videos from Westerners living in, or visiting, China. And they uniformly say the same thing: This massive country is not the place you have been led to believe it is.

As a car fan, I have seen fascinating videos of how the Chinese auto industry—and specifically their electric vehicle (EV) sector—has become a world leader and no longer merely a "copycat" of Western technology.