China Inc.: The Relentless Rise of the Next Great Superpower
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Ted Fishman's China Inc. offers a breakneck tour of China's economic boom and its huge impact on both the country and the world
As befits its dizzying acceleration, Tim Fishman's China Inc. is a trawl through 21st century China's economy that's written at a breakneck pace. This is no dry economics textbook, however - Fishman's concise and colloquial writing style distills a huge wealth of political intrigue, jaw dropping statistics and personal anecdotes that helps define the culture of the new China as much as it describes the Chinese economy.
Fishman sets out to explore how China has become the world's manufacturing powerhouse - and how that makes the economies of China, America, Europe and elsewhere all intimately and irrevocably interlinked with one another. Along the way he dispenses brilliant thumbnail sketches and detailed studies of a myriad of Chinese culture and business - how Shanghai's spectacular skyline is propelled by a sense of shame over its colonial past; why the Cultural Revolution's disasterous attempt to impose communist policies created the conditions for capitalism to thrive; how the Chinese were responsible for turning DVD from a premium tech toy into the world's cheapest and most popular movie format; why families have spent their life savings on home made computers to access the Internet and be able to sell on Ebay; the almost innate Chinese hatred for the Japanese that provides no barrier to a booming trade between the two countries; how Wal-Mart became the biggest retailer in the world on the back of its China trading; and how Pekin, Illinois is recovering from huge losses to its manufacturing jobs due to Chinese competition and is also looking to China as the new market for its goods.
China's economic dynamism comes in part from its draconian social strictures - Communism's lasting legacy on the country is a docile workforce which is prepared to work longer hours for less pay than anywhere else in the world. The cost of China's ability to outstrip all other countries in this fashion is China's human rights record - an appalling and ongoing catalogue of imprisonment, torture, suppression (hello Tibet) and, as demonstrated by the Tianamen Square in 1989, outright murder to counter the threat of democracy. The Bush and Blair administrations condemn neighbouring Burma's repressive regime and urge businesses and tourists to boycott the country: neither mentions a word about China's human rights record for fear of losing out on the next lucrative contract.
This is not to say tourists or businesses should boycott China - far from it. The Chinese people are not the same as the dictatorial Chinese government, and China as a place to visit is a spectacular country. But, as Fishman points out, the Chinese government are past masters at normalising their own values, and foreign businesses, journalists and expats alike unconsciously find themselves parroting the government's justifications for its ultra-repressive policies.
It's this tension between China's economic explosion and its political repression that will shape China over the next few decades. There's exuberance at the money saved in the West and anxiety about the consequences of outsourcing jobs to make those savings - consequences that may come back to haunt American and European industries. Whatever happens in China now has a direct, and massive, impact in countries throughout the world which cannot be reversed. In that sense, whether or not you're interested in visiting China, China Inc. is a crucial book to understand the interdependence of countries on one another. It would be foolish to say you know a country from reading one book, but China Inc. acts as an excellent, eye-opening primer into the realities of 21st century China.
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