Playing Our Game: Why China’s Rise Doesn’t Threaten the West
Conventional wisdom holds that China’s burgeoning economic power has reduced the United States to little more than a customer and borrower of Beijing. The rise of China, many feel, necessarily means the decline of the West–the United States in particular.
Not so, writes Edward Steinfeld. If anything, China’s economic emergence is good for America. In this fascinating new book, Steinfeld asserts that China’s growth is fortifying American commercial supremacy, because (as the title says) China is playing our game. By seeking to realize its dream of modernization by integrating itself into the Western economic order, China is playing by our rules, reinforcing the dominance of our companies and regulatory institutions. The impact of the outside world has been largely beneficial to China’s development, but also enormously disruptive. China has in many ways handed over–outsourced–the remaking of its domestic economy and domestic institutions to foreign companies and foreign rule-making authorities. For Chinese companies now, participation in global production also means obedience to foreign rules. At the same time, even as these companies assemble products for export to the West, the most valuable components for those products come from the West. America’s share of global manufacturing, by value, has actually increased since 1990. Within China, the R&D centers established by Western companies attract the country’s best scientists and engineers, and harness that talent to global, rather than indigenous Chinese, innovation efforts. In many ways, both Chinese and American society are benefiting as a result. That said, the pressures on China are intense. China is modeling its economy on the United States, with vast consequences in a country with a small fraction of America’s per-capita income and scarcely any social safety net. Walmartization is not something that Asian manufacturing power is doing to us; rather, it is how we are transforming China.
From outsourcing to energy, Steinfeld overturns the conventional wisdom in this incisive and richly researched account.
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Price: $ 10.81
China’s Water Crisis (Voices of Asia)
An International Rivers Network Book
translated by Nancy Yang Lui and Lawrence R. Sullivan
China’s Water Crisis (Zhongguo shui weiji) is the most comprehensive, authoritative, and up-to-date-source of information on the enormous water resource crisis confronting the People’s Republic of China. The author describes in great detail the floods, water scarcity, and pollution problems existing in all seven of China’s major drainage basins—large and small—and proposes workable solutions for sustainable management.
Of greatest concern to Mr. Ma is the condition of China’s two major rivers, the Yellow and the Yangzi. The very existence of the Yellow River is threatened by massive reductions in water flow caused by a variety of man-made programs while chronic soil erosion resulting from defor-estation together with dam construction has led to a cycle of flood and drought in the Yangzi River basin. The same issues are reflected in China’s smaller rivers. Mr. Ma documents the persistent drought conditions in the southeast, the impact of pollutants on the Tibetan plateau, the defects in China’s large-scale reservoirs, steadily diminishing underground water tables, and the growing abuse of aquifers for urbanization and industrialization.
Despite his alarming findings, Mr. Ma feels that there is hope if major remedial programs are put in place very soon. Otherwise, he paints a compelling picture of a nation which will experience—over the next several decades—dramatic deterioration in its clean water.
List Price: $ 29.95
Price: $ 29.95
China’s Path,
This is a well researched book that provides a clear perspective on China’s relationship with the U.S. and the effects of globalization upon both countries. The author defines globalization as organized, worldwide production chains, and any major participant in the production part of the chain needs to accommodate to the direction and control from the product conceptualizers, branders, and marketers, which are often U.S. corporations. With globalized production, often the processes that were within one company are now dispersed across multiple firms in different countries. This book develops the best explanation of the Chinese and U.S. interdependencies I’ve read – much more systematically described than the recent book on the same topic, Superfusion, by Zachary Karabell.
Many in the U.S. view China as a threat, but this perspective is limited. The reality is more complex and nuanced. Even R. James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA takes the simplistic and wrong view in calling China’s national strategy one of domination. Chinese companies are individually striving to be world class, quality producers. The Chinese government has no specialized development plans that control these firms – rather, the government enables the conditions that allow these firms be successful in global markets. In short, the author describes the Chinese story as one of being remarkably adaptable and open to change. China’s government wants to develop new markets in fields such as nuclear energy, high speed rail, and green technologies, to name just three of the several areas described in this book, but beyond these goals, the government does not control how these initiatives are to be pursued. The author states it is not a fair and accurate view to describe China as a threat to U.S. economic interests, as China’s rapid development has been the result of embracing outside influences to harness the benefits of new production chain opportunities. The Chinese government has relinquished power and provided the latitude to enterprises so they can support product development projects. Most perspectives emphasizing zero-sum contests (state vs. society, communism vs. democracy, democrat vs. authoritarian) discount the depth and real meaning of change, as the author points out in several examples. The book’s description of the flow of dollars and renmimbi (RMB) within China – between its central bank and businesses – and between China and the U.S., is the most complete explanation of the U.S. – China economic relationship I’ve read.
I gave this book only 4 stars because it didn’t include discussion China’s developing economic relationships with countries other than the U.S., such as African and South American nations, Australia, Malaysia, and the EU. I also would have liked to have seen some treatment of how China’s system of capitalism compares and contrasts with current capitalist practices in India, the EU, and the US. The book does address Taiwan, and this was quite interesting. Also, I would have liked to have read more on the socio-economic factors as they affect Chinese citizens, such as the massive relocations from farms to coastal cities. I know this topic is quite broad, but the book does not discuss the vitality, energy, and motivations of the individual contributors that drive China’s successes. Also, it would have been helpful to describe any effects of the 1997 transition of Hong Kong from British sovereignty to the Chinese government. Any one book, especially one as well-focused as this one, shouldn’t make a full treatment of these areas, but these topics could have been mentioned. Overall, this book does an excellent job of describing how China has emerged from a socialistic society to realize the vitality of the West’s new market opportunities. The book does not attempt to project China’s future, but provides the background information necessary for the reader to make his or her own predictions.
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|Excellent Analysis,
Professor Steinfeld is bringing a new and sophisticated analysis on our relationship with China. His observation is that outsourcing is actually happening in both directions. While much has been written about the outsourcing of manufacturing from the U.S. to China, the reverse outsourcing of institutions from China to the West and the U.S. in particular is less well recognized or appreciated. As a consequence of the on-going reverse institutional outsourcing such as corporate governance, macroeconomic practices, education and professional development of the elites and even foreign exchange mechanism, a gradual but profound revolution is underway whose impact on Chinese society is no less than the more traumatic revolutions in the Chinese history of the last century.
The book is well written and the arguments are well presented. Whether or not one agrees with the viewpoint that China’s rise doesn’t threaten the West or that the Chinese Communist Party is onto a path not unlike that of the Kuomintang in Taiwan, Professor Steinfeld’s book will sharpen our observations and add nuance to the debate. It is one of the best books on the subject that rises far above the noise!
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|optimistic?,
I like the idea, but I guess that it is optimistic a little.
I hope that his idea is right.
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