3 New books about the 'real' China.

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MaomingMaster
Board Legend

Joined: Feb 03, 2004
Posts: 11059

Posted: May 06, 2005 - 09:10 AM
Post subject: 3 New books about the 'real' China.

Behind all the glitter
May 5th 2005 | HONG KONG
From The Economist print edition

Interesting and informed books about China's rise and the global impact of its economy are not easy to come by, as three new offerings attest

The Chinese Century: The Rising Chinese Economy and Its Impact on the Global Economy, the Balance of Power, and Your Job
By Oded Shenkar

Wharton; 191 pages; $25.95. FT Prentice Hall; £17.99

Buy it at
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

China Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World
By Ted C. Fishman

Scribner; 342 pages; $26.
Simon & Schuster; £12.99

Buy it at
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China
By Rachel DeWoskin

Norton; 304 pages; $24.95

Buy it at
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk

CHINA'S boom—and its effect on western manufacturing jobs and consumer prices—is underlined by an array of impressive, if somewhat familiar, statistics. China now consumes 40% of the world's cement, a third of its coal and a quarter of its steel. The move of its peasants to the cities is the greatest migration in human history. Paid at less than 50 cents an hour, these disciplined workers can out-compete anyone in the world.

Oded Shenkar's succinct and thoughtful book, “The Chinese Century”, argues that the rise of China has more in common with the rise of the United States than with that of the other Asian “tigers”. China's huge domestic market quickly gave it global bargaining power. More important, it opened up early to foreign investment and trade. As a result, says Mr Shenkar, a management professor with a long interest in China, the country is rapidly climbing the technological ladder by learning and stealing from foreigners. And its large, cheap labour force means that, unlike Japan or South Korea, it can retain its cost advantage in manufacturing as it moves up the value curve. China's greater tolerance of entrepreneurship, he argues, means that its impact will ultimately be more far-reaching and sustainable than Japan's.

One can debate the technology point. The fact that China's businesses are at the mercy of government whim and political favour, and private entrepreneurs are starved of capital, has discouraged long-term research and promoted unsustainable price wars as a way of grabbing market share. Nor has China benefited as much as it might have done from foreign “technology transfer”, despite the scant legal protection offered to intellectual property. Still, Mr Shenkar makes some powerful points about China's tradition of innovation (gunpowder, paper), its readiness, unlike Japan's, to open up its educational system, and the extent to which it has benefited, again unlike Japan, or even India, from a large, rich, educated and entrepreneurial diaspora.

By contrast, Ted Fishman, an American journalist, is more didactic. As a readable primer, his book “China Inc.” has some appeal. But it is short on depth, favouring breathless anecdote about “what is occurring on the other side of the globe” over considered analysis. Mr Fishman admits to having made only two, albeit lengthy, trips to China, but confesses that he was told to finish the book quickly. He leans on secondary sources and seems to have interviewed more people in Chicago than in Shanghai. Mr Fishman offers a wake-up call to his fellow Americans, but ultimately he fails in his aim to demystify the country. By presenting China as invincible and its rise to superpower status as inevitable, he is in danger of promoting fear rather than understanding.

Neither book gives enough attention to China's real weaknesses: its ageing society, the fragility of its financial system, its sick capital markets, the inefficiency of its economy, its weak service sector, shortages of skilled workers and a political environment that is weighted against long-term business interests. Nor do they deal in any way adequately with the government's feeble attempts to slow its red-hot domestic economy, which stand in contrast to the aggressive way in which it recently flexed its new global muscles by bullying Japan.

For a real insider's look at life in modern China, readers should turn instead to the work of Rachel DeWoskin, who spent five years in Beijing. Hers is a personal memoir, not an academic effort. But by retelling her rather extraordinary experience and drawing lessons from the confused reactions of her Chinese friends to their changing country, she shows a society that is both immutable and developing at warp speed.

Ms DeWoskin, daughter of Ken DeWoskin, a sinologist and former University of Michigan professor, was hired by an American public-relations firm in the late 1990s and wound up as the star of a soap opera watched by 600m Chinese—the “Foreign Babes in Beijing” of the book's title. Her writing provides some effective examples of how China sees the world today—and how it thinks the world sees China. When the vegetarian Ms DeWoskin picks the pork off her noodles at lunch on her first day, her co-workers assume she grew up too poor to afford meat. She learns that the Chinese believe that westerners regard them as lazy—a conclusion that is reinforced, no doubt, by the fact that her American boss shouts and throws hamburgers at his Chinese staff. When her fellow actors call her kaifang or open-minded, she is flattered before realising that when applied to a young, foreign girl, the word means promiscuous.

Ms DeWoskin is at her best when recounting the contradictions of modern China. Her friends brim with optimism. They switch jobs, start businesses and crave western goods. Yet they also remain suspicious of western values, socially conservative and jingoistic. In the soap opera, the author plays a ruthless “foreign babe” who steals a nice young Chinese man from his wife. Yet by the end, his traditional family has come to accept her, partly because she genuinely loves him, but mostly because she promises to take him to America with her. Ms DeWoskin's portrait of the complexities of urban China is not uncritical. But her book is written with enormous warmth for its people. And it is all the better for avoiding neat conclusions.

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Priceless...

Has anyone seen this 'Foreign Babes' show? Sounds like a pile of shite...

Laughing

bravojohnny

Raver

Joined: July 08, 2004
Posts: 497

Status: Offline

Posted: May 06, 2005 - 10:23 AM

its their new,sick way to promote "babes" to come here or entice the men to beomce more aggressive or both. If its not that I don't even ficking know

fukuman

Wonder Wit

Joined: Sep 18, 2003
Posts: 3699

Status: Offline

Posted: May 06, 2005 - 12:27 PM

"In the soap opera, the author plays a ruthless “foreign babe” who steals a nice young Chinese man from his wife. Yet by the end, his traditional family has come to accept her, partly because she genuinely loves him, but mostly because she promises to take him to America with her"

wow, 2 fairy tales in 1 story

Henry_Chinaski
Board Lord

Joined: Aug 16, 2003
Posts: 5025

Posted: May 06, 2005 - 03:06 PM

"Neither book gives enough attention to China's real weaknesses: its ageing society, the fragility of its financial system, its sick capital markets, the inefficiency of its economy, its weak service sector, shortages of skilled workers and a political environment that is weighted against long-term business interests. Nor do they deal in any way adequately with the government's feeble attempts to slow its red-hot domestic economy, which stand in contrast to the aggressive way in which it recently flexed its new global muscles by bullying Japan."

As always The Economist pretty sharp. Sad that the books don't cover this though...but hey, if the book sells, who gives a damn....