China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World

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China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World

3.35 of 5 stars 3.35 · rating details · 495 ratings · 54 reviews

China today is visible everywhere -- in the news, in the economic pressures battering the globe, in our workplaces, and in every trip to the store. Provocative, timely, and essential -- and updated with new statistics and information -- this dramatic account of China's growing dominance as an industrial superpower by journalist Ted C. Fishman explains how the profound shif...more

Paperback, 368 pages

Published April 11th 2006 by Scribner (first published February 1st 2005)

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May 02, 2008 Toby rated it 2 of 5 stars

There is a 20% chance that you are Chinese and an 80% chance that you are afraid of the Chinese. Perhaps you are afraid the Chinese will steal your manufacturing job, or feed your child lead paint, or poison you at bedtime because your herbal tea was dried using the hot exhaust of dirty trucks. In China, Inc., Ted Fishman examines what’s going on in China and why that country is fast becoming the West’s new foreign bogey-man.
Fishman, who has been a floor trader and ran his own trading firm, ha...more There is a 20% chance that you are Chinese and an 80% chance that you are afraid of the Chinese. Perhaps you are afraid the Chinese will steal your manufacturing job, or feed your child lead paint, or poison you at bedtime because your herbal tea was dried using the hot exhaust of dirty trucks. In China, Inc., Ted Fishman examines what’s going on in China and why that country is fast becoming the West’s new foreign bogey-man.
Fishman, who has been a floor trader and ran his own trading firm, has written for the New York Times Magazine, Money, Esquire, and Business 2.0; his essays and reports have appeared in other titles as well. According to interviews, Fishman first became interested in China in the late 1970s, after working and living in Asia and seeing the first hints of what China could become. In 2003 and 2004 he travelled through the nascent economic powerhouse to investigate where China’s, and by extension the world’s, economy was heading.
China, Inc. begins with a series of scenario-based anecdotes, the purpose of which is to illustrate how pervasive China is becoming in the everyday lives of Americans, as businesspeople and as consumers. These anecdotes range from observations of cheap Chinese scooters in an auto supply store to stories of people’s livelihoods being usurped by the China Price to Chinese artists making inroads in the collector’s markets.
The story behind these anecdotes is told in numbers; behind an inflated gas price and a deflated pair of Levi’s is a national economy stretching catlike to eagerly paw at the number four position in the ranks of world economies. With a GDP of nearly $2 trillion (in 2005, the year Fishman’s book first saw print), China’s economic kitten is no match for America’s $12 trillion fat cat, but they do grow so fast.
Astonishingly fast, in fact. Fishman relates the stories of Chinese metropolises that spring up, as if overnight: fresh and covered in that new-city smell, Texas-sized and ready to rock. These fast-paced developments, carrying encouraging names like “Special Economic Zone”, are only part of the story, as highways and magnet trains pop up to match pace with and connect the swollen nerve centers of Chinese industry and commerce.
It sounds like SimCity set on warp speed in the hands of a competent player, but this analogy ignores exactly what the computer game has ignored: the individual. Fishman tells the individual’s story in the chapter “The Revolution Against the Communist Revolution,” starting with the poorest of the world’s farmers, the Chinese earth-tillers struggling under the yoke of Mao’s cultural revolution. Unable to provide for themselves after meeting government quotas, i.e., going hungry after feeding the mouths in the city, Chinese farmers began practicing under-the-table capitalism simply by selling off their surplus yields. Needing surplus yields to get started, the incentive to produce took root and, according to Fishman, “yields from the land climbed dramatically.” The secret market created by the farmers was borne out of desperation, and at risk of prison or death, the conspiracy flourished and the entrepreneurial spirit bloomed (page 47).
Fishman then describes the situation in which rural Chinese pin the fortunes and hopes of an entire family or village on a single youth, whom they shuffle off to the city for opportunity in the hopes they will return with gift baskets, cash, and clothes from the Gap. The result is a widespread migration of youth and talent from rural to urban China, leaving behind the older and incapable. Bundle this migration with the loss of farmland to the cartoonish spread of city centers, and it’s no wonder China is an importer of food, particularly American food. China’s development “mirrors the growth of other economies that ... have helped turn American agriculture into an export powerhouse” (page 140).
It is not the plight of the Chinese farmer, however, that keeps American manufacturing awake at night, nor is it what lights the eyes of a Wal-Mart purchaser looking for new ways to “roll back” prices. In the chapter called “The China Price,” Fishman tells us what these nightmares and dreams are made of.
The China Price is defined as the lowest possible price for a given commodity, whether it’s a widget or a gadget or a DVD player. There is no single factor that grants this price the proper noun that brands it with a nationality, but a confluence of factors:
There is the push from big-box retailers to continually drop prices, which means they will only do business with suppliers who can commit to annual price drops. There is the habit of the Chinese government to hand out loans to business with a nod and a wink that indicates it need never be paid back. At the same time, the Chinese government “looks out for” its local concerns by requiring any foreign companies doing business in China to share its intellectual property with their Chinese partners. There is the mind-boggling mass of people willing to do just about any work for just about any wage. There is the artificial correlation between the American Dollar and the Chinese Yuan. There is also the bigger-than-anything nature of Chinese manufacturing, which can result in a factory output so large that there is no choice but to set an impossibly low “China Price” on the output (page 157).
There is only one China Price, and if you cannot match it, the purchaser of your goods knows exactly where to look for someone who can. This is why we see manufacturing flooding into China’s factories, and it’s not just American jobs that are being poached; primarily it is other Asian economies that see their contracts move to China, even though Chinese labor is not necessarily the cheapest. Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam, even Japan see factories at home close as eleven more spring up in the dirty fringes of a Special Economic Zone.
The rewards of the China Price do not come without risk, and it is to these risks that Fishman attempts to turn the reader’s eyes. The AP wire is already overflowing with the latest “Chinese junk kills Americans” tale, be it lead paint on a toy or counterfeit infant formula (or soy sauce distilled from human hair, page 143), but other risks hide in the untold footnote of the China Price.
China invests in the US, just differently than how the US invests in China. China buys up American debt, through treasury bonds, mortgage bundles, and other instruments. Even as consumers bask in the glow of China Priced goods and services, freely tossing wads of disposable income to the overseas bogey-man ($170 billion in 2004, according to page 254), they become further obligated to the Chinese as the portfolio of American debt instruments swells. Not only that, but institutional investors representing the pensions of American workers invest heavily in companies that in turn invest billions in China (page 258).
China has its currency, the yuan, pegged to the American dollar. When the dollar rises, so does the yuan; when the dollar falls, the yuan floats down with it. While this used to be good news (as when China alone kept a stable currency as other Asian nations experienced economic crises), today this means that China is a “global bargain bin,” where it might cost a million dollars to build a factory that would cost $1.4 million elsewhere (page 261). Instead of being a level playing field, the yuan’s dollar-peg invites criticism from those who allege China has manufactured an artificial advantage for themselves in addition to cheap DVD players and bootleg movies to play in them.
One takeaway from Fishman’s book is to beware an angry China. China buys so much American debt that one could conceive of ways in which China can pull the ever-strengthening strings of the American economy. China stockpiles enough dollars that it could flood the global currency markets if it decided on a spending spree; China pushes down interest rates through its debt investments, and through the China Price China takes American’s money both coming and going. One of these days China might drop the tab off on the table, and we’ll wonder if all the gluttony was worth it.
It remains to be seen whether China’s pretensions to capitalism are sustainable. Certainly, the nation seems to operate its own reality-distortion field in which one can decide, seemingly on a whim, to scrub the skies of pollution in advance of the Olympic games through an ambitious program of cloud-seeding. Similarly, the entire engine driving China’s economy seems powered not just by coal and oil, but by sheer force of will. If we let that will grow too strong, China might end up drinking our milkshake after all.
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Nov 19, 2012 Alvaro Berrios rated it 2 of 5 stars

Overall, I thought this book was pretty bad. It's main goal is to cause fear and panic in the American people. It depicts China as this giant monster that is looking to suck the life out of the USA in its goal for global conquering and domination. Go run and hide, because the Chinese are coming!

This is the wrong way to look at China. Instead of a threat, China needs to be seen as an opportunity. They don't steal our jobs, international trade is a vital part of any nation's growth and it makes us...more

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Jan 11, 2009 Claire S marked it as to-read

Shelves: class-relations, explored-skimmed, fiction-not-at-all, global, historical, indexia, g_india-and, g_pakistan, politics-learning, fin-econ, workplace, f_truth-mixt-q, a-1-immediacy, obama-term-1

I bought and skimmed/read this book during the Olympic boycott conversation, and one thing I found interesting is that the term 'Human Rights' is not in the index. Which would indicate it's not a concept that the author included in this book. Skimming on my own, I did find it mentioned - but only as a transparent strategy that certain entities use to try and stem US job loss - nothing more. Which was interesting at that point in time (and now).

In general, I found it the way others have - superf...more

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Dec 11, 2009 Tippy Jackson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics, economics

Very well done. This book manages to communicate complex topics in a way that is easy for non-economists to understand, yet it is not written in a way that is insulting or patronizing. Very interesting all the way through. In particular, I liked the discussion on having the yuan tied to the dollar, how that came about and what it means. Some of the questions this book answered: What advantages does China have over the rest of the world market? What disadvantages do they have? How will China’s ri...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Amblingbooks.com marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, business-economics, history

China today is visible everywhere -- in the news, in the economic pressures battering America, in the workplace, and in every trip to the store. Provocative, timely, and essential, this dramatic account of china's growing dominance as an industrial super-power by journalist Ted C. Fishman explains how the profound shift in the global economic order has occurred -- and why it already affects us all.

Listen to China, Inc. on your smartphone, notebook or desktop computer.

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Dec 28, 2010 Gary rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was an engaging audiobook that coincidentally had the same narrator as my previous audiobook selection (Alan Sklar). Unlike some of the previous books on China I've read or listened to, this one limited itself mainly to business and economic ramifications of China's rise. Interestingly, since it is about 5 years old, the main themes seemed a bit out of step with the latest trends in "China watching" - for example, much was made in this book of the process known as "offshoring," or the trans...more

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Apr 18, 2010 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Insightful on China, both in the obvious ways (business), but also in the personal driving forces of the country - how communism and business merge (no capitalism there), banking and government compromises, cultural clashes across provinces, but also across town, and between the major city centers (which are 'rivals'), etc. Fascinating overall. Note that it is dated (2005), but it is an excellent snapshot, and clearly implies where China is going (many guesses have already come true.)

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Jun 09, 2007 Melissa rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This book. Initially, I was a little skeptical of this book. China is a hot topic lately and it seemed this book was published to make money off that sensationalism. But, in the beginning, I was surprised, it offered me an accurate introductory explanation to a lot of what I encountered in China. However, the goodness stopped there. Fishman writes from a US perspective and accuses China of havingcreating an unfair global economic advantage (which is absurd). Ultimately, I think I just chose the...more

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May 15, 2012 Megan Blood rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: didn-t-finish

China fascinates me, but this book was just too adoring. Any book that gives property rights in China a mere skimming over (less than a paragraph, with a lengthy footnote that for some reason he didn't feel necessary to include in the text itself) is not doing adequate analysis of China's future.

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Aug 03, 2010 Daniela rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was not only really informative, but also extremely well written, with vivid and exhilarating descriptions of the rise of China and its impact on the global economy in the 21st century. This is not a dull book by any means! Unlike many other business books, Ted C Fishman's work is not only thought-provoking, but also shocking and exciting.

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Oct 20, 2008 Hubert rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those interested in China or international trade and economics

Shelves: politics-economics

This was a decent primer concerning the rise of China as an economic powerhouse. The strength of the text lies in a) its ability to link intimate narrative capsules of ordinary Chinese lives and their links to larger economic trends and b) its theories as to how capitalism got started in the first place in China.

The last third of the book is a more ordinary indictment on the Western world's inability to match China's cheap labor supply and its effects on other nations' economies. The 'usual susp...more

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May 17, 2009 Rosemary rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well-researched, lots of detail...this has to be a special area of interest for you to read it. Otherwise, I think most people ould find it a bit boring.

Was written in 2002 0r 2003...some of the info is aging

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Jul 08, 2012 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Very interesting. However, it was published in 2004 and although many things are still pertinent, there is much that is outdated. I would like to see the author published an updated version.

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Jan 11, 2013 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: china

Book describes the urbanization and industrialization of China tied to the effects on the global economy. Excellent baseline book on beginning of current economic conditions.

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Jan 31, 2012 Adelaida De rated it 4 of 5 stars

Good insight of China. Stuffs I didn't imagine and some other ideas that were clarified by this book. If you want to have an idea of where is China leading, then read this book.

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Dec 26, 2009 Andrew Pace rated it 3 of 5 stars

Difficult read, but left me feeling like I knew a lot more about a country that will be a prime mover, if not the most significant force of the 21st century.

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Jun 19, 2009 Laura rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: business

I am not sure I agree with everything in this book...I have lived and worked in China for 4+ years...jury is still out on this book.

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Sep 25, 2009 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not bad as an adjunct to "The Coming China Wars", a little more information. Doesn't take the problems seriously enough.

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Jul 31, 2009 Benjamin Alexander rated it 3 of 5 stars

I listened to probably around 300 pages or so..VERY interesting about our future with China--need to know stuff

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Jan 01, 2009 Damndirtypandas added it

China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World by Ted C. Fishman (2006)

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Apr 20, 2012 J K rated it 4 of 5 stars

Almost a decade old, but continuously relevant. China will be the factory of the world for another 50 years.

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Nov 18, 2010 Jim George rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Wake up America! Or soon it will be too fricking late. Frightening statistics!

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Aug 14, 2011 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

I read this while living in China and found it to be insighful.

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Jul 26, 2011 Natalie added it

this is like a 300 page Xinhua report

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Nov 20, 2009 Edit Noorita Kusuma is currently reading it

Wow China is incredible

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Mar 11, 2012 Jose Miguel Perez rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: china

This book tells the History of China during the second half of the 20th century using the story of a family that moves from the interior rural areas of China to Shanghai. It reviews the changes the Chinese society has gone through in these decades and speaks a bit about how the changes in China have affected most of the countries in the World, overall from the USA point of view.

I highlight the stories of the 18 peasants from Xiaogang and how Shenzhen turned into what it is today.

Enjoy!!

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Jan 25, 2010 Erica rated it 3 of 5 stars

If you read the paper on a regular basis or anything on current events for that matter, then this book is not nessecary. I feel it was an easy way to make money and I bought it!

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Feb 16, 2010 Sharlene added it

ok, so i didn't actually finish this. While kind of interesting, not written like the other books that really held my attention on china.

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Aug 15, 2008 Karen rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book makes all the classic arguments about China's rise in the world economy. Artificially keeping their yuan low compared to the dollar to court more multi-national business, cheap manufacturing and even cheaper pirated goods all make China the superpower that it is. It plays on American's fears of loss of jobs and money to China. It smacks of America's fear of Japan in the '80s.

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Feb 29, 2008 Whatsittoya added it

For any US citizen, I would highly recommend this book. It's smart to be aware of what our future might or might not hold. Made in China is something we're very used to and I don't think that will change any time soon. From an economic standpoint and just general knowledge standpoint, this book is worth reading.

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