“james kynge, former china bureau chief of best newspaper in the world (The Financial Times), won the FT / Goldman Sachs business book of the year award in 1996 with 'china shakes the world' which is a superb, concise introduction to how and why china is shaping our world.
the first half tells the condensed history of china's post-cultural revolution rise and illuminates its leading position during much of the last six thousand years.
the book starts off recounting the mysterious disappearance of manhole covers all over the world (with plenty of reports of unsuspecting pedestrians falling into the suddenly-there holes from mongolia to montreal) as a signal of when the direction of the world - china relationship switched: the view of china flipped from how the outside world was changing china to how china was affecting the rest of the world. china's voracious appetite for almost every conceivable resource including the scrap metal that those manholes were destined to become was just one signal that the causal direction was switching.
james has plenty of engaging first-hand accounts from his two decades living in china through which it often seems we are witnessing china's economic transformation unfold through his eyes.
some of the major themes / ideas that run throughout include:
* businesses everywhere are finding it harder to compete (manufacturers in particular), the sustainability of europe's welfare state model is in question as the industrial base there is hollowed out.
* china out-competes and out-capitalizes everyone, especially america.
* chinese possess the impressive combo of intelligence and second-to-none work ethic.
* china through lowering the cost of goods and its insatiable appetite for us treasuries (in part to manage its currency) has fueled the low-iinterest rate driven housing boom and general drive for yield that has resulted in the current sub-prime, credit-crunch, free-fall dollar mess we're in.
* 400 million people have been lifted above the poverty line over the last 28 years of above 9.5% economic growth.
a could be briefer! summary of some of the book's chapters at:
http://shehab.vox.com/library/post/let-china-sleep-for-when-she-wakes-she-will-shake-the-world.html”
dionysus wrote this review Monday, September 1 2008.
(
reply |
permalink )
