The first surprise was that China has made so much progress in modernizing since the Cultural Revolution. Automobiles are being manufactured in China including Jeeps, VWs, and Audis, which were apparent on the streets.
Traffic jams are terrible in the major cities, despite new highways.
Those concerned about the infrastructure should be reassured by the modern airports and the new Boeing and Airbus airplanes. We can't comment on the trains, but, especially with last year's internal Russian flight on our minds, we were reassured about the situation in the air. The attention to detail and the level of service is very high in the 3 to 5 star class of hotels that we visited. Service was excellent. We stayed in first-class establishments, but the service orientation was apparent elsewhere.