The man expected to be China's leader for the next 10 years, Xi Jinping, arrived in the United States on Monday, Feb. 13. This will be an excellent occasion for Americans to assess him and take stock of the relationship with the rising power of the 21st century. Needless to say, there are complex and polarizing reactions toward China in the United States: The racially tinged advertisement by Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra depicting a happy, young Chinese woman speaking broken English as she celebrates American decline is but the most recent example of an attempt to manipulate Americans' emotions rather than activate their brains.

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The American narrative about China sees a rising, highly disciplined nation under a dictatorial and directed leadership with a strategic vision of regional -- if not global -- dominance. This may sound dark, but it's actually an attractive narrative for some. For the U.S. military, China provides a mobilizing enemy to fuel military spending, strategic doctrine, and new weapons systems. For some corporations and labor leaders, the notion that America can't compete with a China that cheats is a pretext for protectionism and tax breaks. For those who lament the state of the U.S. economy and the dysfunctional U.S. political system, China's success provides a useful challenge, like Sputnik in the 1950s. To neoconservatives and foreign-policy hawks who see the international arena as a Hobbesian world in which America dominates or is dominated, China provides the obvious threat to U.S. preeminence. To democracy promoters and human rights campaigners, China is the embodiment of what most needs fixing in the world. And to believers in the inevitability of American decline, China represents the 800-pound gorilla that the United States needs to accommodate sooner rather than later by shrinking its regional presence, drawing back to its own shores, and reducing unproductive alliances.

But let's take a deep breath and look at the real China that America faces.

China's growth and accomplishments in the last four decades since it abandoned Maoism and undertook reform are truly extraordinary. From an economic backwater visible on the world stage largely as a provocateur, China's economy has grown about 10 percent per year for four decades and will soon be the world's largest. It is the critical trading partner of every important economy in East Asia. Its companies and entrepreneurs are omnipresent in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Its military is no longer 10 million men with carbine rifles -- spending has grown at a faster rate than its economy, and China now boasts sophisticated missile systems, cyberwar capabilities, and stealth fighter technology, not to mention nuclear weapons. And in the diplomatic sphere, Beijing's influence has grown too. Its support or opposition could mean the difference between success and failure for American efforts to reverse Iran's and North Korea's nuclear weapons programs and bring an end to Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

But the reality of China is much, much more complex than its rising GDP or military spending curve.

China's per capita income remains only about $4,000, about 10 percent of America's. It has a handful of companies that compete as global brands, the rest satisfying domestic or regional markets or serving as subcontractors for foreign brands. Its research systems excel at copying or adapting foreign technologies, rather than innovation. It has one of the highest disparities of wealth between rich and poor of any country in the developing world. China's environmental degradation and its shrinking water supply threaten the health of its population. And its economic model, which has relied on export-led growth, foreign direct investment, and domination by state-owned enterprises and companies with party connections, is running out of steam and badly needs fundamental reform.

Beyond these social and economic problems, more and more mainstream Chinese, not merely the handful of dissidents who gain international attention, resent Beijing's failure to evolve toward a participatory system of governance that protects rights and relies on the rule of law. An Internet on which state abuses go viral before the authorities can shut down unwelcome stories, along with blogs that amplify these reports, ensures that hundreds of millions of Chinese know about systemic problems. Chinese are no more tolerant of abuses of power than Americans are. They don't have the tools to act that Americans have, but that doesn't mean passivity always prevails. A recent uprising in Guangdong province's Wukan village against corrupt dealings between developers and officials led to a remarkably sensible and humane outcome, thanks to an astute Communist Party secretary who sought conciliation and accountability rather than more punishment and repression. In Chongqing, the world's largest city, a saga is unfolding involving Bo Xilai, one of the leaders expected to ascend to a senior leadership position at the party congress this fall, in which there are credible allegations of gangsterism and abuse of power that could upend the seamless succession that most have predicted. In the Tibetan areas of western China, we are seeing the continuing inability of a Han leadership to deal with ethnic and religious diversity by means other than police repression.

With Xi's arrival in the United States, Americans need to keep in mind the complexity of the China he will rule. The world's major rising power is indeed a global competitor of the United States, but it is at the same time a country beset by staggering problems at home that will preoccupy Xi's tenure. It is too soon to know whether Xi will aggressively tackle China's economic and governance problems with preemptive reforms, as former Premier Zhu Rongji did 15 years ago, or whether he will pursue a cautious course and simply seek to muddle through. It is in Washington's interest that he succeed if he takes the former route. American condemnations of China, its leadership, and its development achievements will not derail Xi or prevent China from achieving its national destiny, but they will ensure that most Chinese will see America as its adversary rather than its partner.

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