My name is Jim Hassett.  I am a retired entrepreneur and the author of 15 books including  Decisions that Changed Our Lives: Twenty-Five Interviews about Relationships, Careers and More.

My interest in China started about 20 years ago when I read the New York Times bestseller China Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World. I couldn’t believe some of the facts in there. One that stuck with me: at that time, China had to build the equivalent of Houston’s entire infrastructure every single month just to keep up with the flood of people moving from the countryside into cities.

As it turned out, the urban migration was even more dramatic than predicted. Between 2000 and today, the number of people living in Chinese cities more than doubled—from 456 million to about 930 million.

In my (sometimes) humble opinion, the U.S.–China relationship is the single most important factor shaping my grandson’s future—and perhaps the very survival of the planet.

Of course, China is notoriously hard to write about. Michael Pillsbury, a China expert who has advised nine U.S. presidents, calls the government’s approach a “cloak of secrecy.” In his book The Hundred Year Marathon, he explains that this secrecy, combined with vast cultural differences, has led Americans to misjudge China repeatedly—often with serious consequences.

And he includes himself in that category. For years, Pillsbury was one of the people pushing for the U.S. to share technology and even some military support with China. Later, he admitted: “Every one of the assumptions behind that advice was wrong—dangerously so.”

That’s a humbling thing to admit, and it shows how tough it is for even the so-called experts to figure China out.

Which brings me to a disclaimer: I have never visited China. Some argue that firsthand experience is essential. But that hasn’t stopped seasoned observers—from think-tank analysts to government advisors—from making wildly different predictions.

So, while the posts in this blog can’t offer certainty, they may help us all to try to understand China well enough to coexist.

The other alternative is that, as comedian Kathleen Madigan once joked: “We should all get Rosetta Stone and learn a little Chinese before they get here.”