In 1979, Shenzhen was a collection of fishing villages on the South China coast, with a population smaller than that of Duluth. That year, Deng Xiaoping created a set of "Special Economic Zones," to encourage businesses to make a start. Rural workers flocked to the southern cities. Foreign capital poured in. Environmental considerations were put on hold. Today Shenzhen, the place your computer components come from, is larger than New York City. It is a city of shiny 40-story apartment buildings, broad boulevards and caustic air.

In "Postcards From Tomorrow Square: Reports From China," James Fallows, national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly (where these pieces first appeared), offers a lucid and fascinating introduction to China's remarkable economic growth, and he regards his subject in human terms. He argues that a Shenzhen worker, living in a company dormitory and eating at a canteen, is better off than someone in Chicago trying to make it on minimum wage. And he makes the larger utilitarian argument that China's current system -- with its poor air, corruption and authoritarian control -- offers the greatest good for its 1.3 billion people.

Fallows navigates several of China's rivers of money. His chapters on Macao's casinos, the Beijing Olympics and Yellow Sheep River, a 145-room resort in the middle of an impoverished western province, are surprising and insightful. Balancing these are discussions of governmental controls. The Communist Party, willing to experiment but dedicated to its own self-preservation, keeps a watchful eye on the economy and clamps down on the Internet, press coverage of Tibet and anything else that threatens to destabilize the state.

We meet several compelling figures, among them Zhang Yue, the billionaire genius behind Broad Air Conditioning, a private company with a successful "green" product. Zhang's work force is strictly regimented and the culture of the workplace isolated from outside influences. He comes across as an affable despot who regards his company as his "work of art."

Fallows likes Zhang and in general believes that "on the whole Chinese people get along with Americans, and vice versa." However, while China's interests to date -- marketing consumer goods, investing in T-bills -- have complemented those of the United States, Fallows reminds us that China will act in its own interests.

Indeed, since Fallows' final postcard, dated November 2008, China has announced that it would scale back on purchasing American currency, and instead, buy shares in local banks and put money into its own infrastructure and educational system.

So how should we respond to China? We should pursue a policy of openness, the author suggests. Chinese students want to attend our universities and we should welcome "talented foreigners." We should adhere to our belief in civil liberties, equality and the rule of law. Lastly, we should respond to foreign criticism with thick skin and good humor. "Our idea is strong," he states. "We should act as if we know that."

Thomas Zelman is a professor of English at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth and a recent visitor to Shenzhen.