In Shanghai this spring, the worst problem we’ve encountered is road construction. Streets large and small are torn up and blocked off, so taxi rides that used to take 20 minutes now take an hour or more at the wrong time of day. The taxi drivers, like most Shanghainese, are friendly and helpful, careening along narrow streets to find the routes with fewest workers and dumptrucks halting the flow of traffic.

But recently we have received worried e-mail messages from friends in the states who are afraid the spy plane crisis of April 1 and President Bush’s decision to sell arms to Taiwan have spurred angry mobs to demonstrate outside our apartment.

In a word, it has not happened. We have experienced no change in the attitudes of our students, colleagues, neighbors and shopkeepers. Everyone is as cheerful and helpful as ever.

The Chinese, of course, feel strongly that the United States is responsible for the death of pilot Wang Wei in the plane incident. There can be little argument about whether the U.S. plane was spying on China – regardless of whether the plane was in international airspace or not, it was gathering intelligence on the Chinese military, which is spying. While the Chinese press reports that the U.S. aircraft caused the collision, the Western press reports that Wang Wei caused it. If you were Chinese, which would you believe – the account given by your own news media, or the account given by a spying country’s media?

The fact that the United States sends planes at all offends and embarrasses the Chinese people. In ways that are difficult for Westerners to understand, the Chinese feel they lose dignity and stature when spied on without consequence, and feel they are being pushed around. To the Chinese, Wang Wei was killed pushing back, a sacrifice any country would applaud, and they rally to his courage.

Chinese friends tell us that furious messages have been posted in Internet chatrooms, by people who most likely already harbor resentment against “foreigners” for understandable historical reasons. And the Chinese government has used the spy plane incident to regain some dignity, at the expense, unfortunately, of the United States. But relatively few Chinese desire revenge on Americans, and the alarmed e-mail messages from home suggest that certain aspects of China’s reaction have been misrepresented by Western media.

For example, the expression “Red China” has been used. This is a phrase from the Cold War, which described an attitude toward politics, economics and society that in practice no longer exists here. The Chinese government is run by members of the Communist Party, of course. But the communism of Mao Zedong has been disappearing for years. In fact, criticism of Mao’s policies is now part of Chinese education. China is energetically seeking to become a player in world capitalism.

Signs of this energy are unmistakable in Shanghai, and elsewhere. Billions of yuan are being invested in office and residential buildings that Western businessmen, diplomats and their families are expected to use. Money is pouring into English-language training for everyone from politicians to waiters. Privately owned shops line Shanghai’s streets. Foreign-owned department stores, McDonald’s, KFCs and Pizza Huts occupy prime locations all over the city; seven Starbucks cafes are going strong. Recently I was asked to speak to a thousand people about Wal-Mart because that company is preparing to build supercenters here. This is not Red China. It is a country of people who are fascinated by American culture and business practices, and want to participate. And the fact is, China’s government is cautiously encouraging them to do so.

The Bush administration, however, is puzzling people here with its apparent determination to refight the Cold War. American planes flying along China’s coast are one kind of threat, but proposing a potentially destabilizing anti-ballistic missile defense while arming Taiwan for war unsettles all Chinese. All of China wants a mutually beneficial reunification of Taiwan and the mainland, not war. This winter, a ferry transported Chinese from Xiamen to Taiwan to visit relatives they had not seen since 1949: This is what most Chinese people hope and expect to see. They view the sale of arms to Taiwan as a bewildering effort to thwart reunification.

In October, Shanghai will host a major meeting of APEC – an event so important to the world economy that President Bush is scheduled to attend it. In preparation, Shanghai is busily improving everything from roads to water systems. Beijing meanwhile is working diligently in hopes of hosting the 2008 Olympics.

China is not America’s natural “adversary,” as one BDN letter writer misguidedly asserted, but a culture struggling to meet the monumental and dangerous problems of transforming its economy and society. They need our intelligent guidance, not our belligerence.

Dana Wilde, a former member of the Bangor Daily News staff, is a U.S. Fulbright lecturer at Fudan University in Shanghai.