Shanghai, China—Shanghai is China's financial capital. The former Western concession today shows little sign of the many bitter political battles fought over the last century. Tourists throng the Bund along the Huangpu River while global corporations fill the skyscrapers in Pudong, across the water.

Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China, also has come to look like a normal city. Ads for Western products compete with Communist Party symbols. Only around Tiananmen Square, with Mao's Mausoleum and Mao's portrait on the Heavenly Gate, does politics ostentatiously dominate.