Wild Ride Quotes

“China’s breathless rise and its experiment in Western capitalism of the last four and a half decades were spurred on and shaped by the Party’s survival agenda. The Party no longer needs the outside world. In fact, survival now dictates that it return to the isolation that has characterized so much of Chinese history.”
― Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride: A short history of the opening and closing of the Chinese economy

“Isolationism is not the solution. Righting the balance will require an innovative re-globalization model in which state players and major corporates recognize the existential threats of their established playbooks and reset their goals to encompass a fairer distribution of wealth globally, unwavering support for basic democratic and human rights practices, and otherwise use their power to create and maintain sustainable social and political stability on a global scale.”
― Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride: A short history of the opening and closing of the Chinese economy

“as much as China was welcomed as a Little Nation That Could, a puppy-dog-like aspirant to a seat at the international table, now China is being excoriated as a stealthy thief of the benefits of integration with none of the obligations.”
― Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride: A short history of the opening and closing of the Chinese economy

“Economically as well as geopolitically, China is withdrawing from the informal pact that has governed its relationship with the world over the last 40 years. It is now evident that the experiment in Western capitalism that commenced in 1979 was a transitory phase, an acknowledgment that state capitalism could be deployed for a time in order to amass capital but that the new ways of doing things could also be discarded when no longer useful to the Party. Just as China opened up in 1979, so now is it closing.”
― Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride: A short history of the opening and closing of the Chinese economy

“The internment camps in Xinjiang, the betrayal of Hong Kong, hostage diplomacy, intense focus on national security issues, truculent secrecy around Covid-19, and, most of all, economic weakness have shown the world that China’s apparent desire to integrate into the global system of governance was temporary, provisional, and opportunistic rather than ideological.”
― Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride: A short history of the opening and closing of the Chinese economy

“Given the imperative to push capital investment, China’s educational curriculum, quality of healthcare, and efficiency of financial services all deteriorated as capital was concentrated in building physical facilities.”
― Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride: A short history of the opening and closing of the Chinese economy

“The property market became a stage on which governments and financial institutions played out a pantomime designed to present the appearance of a healthy commercial market.”
― Anne Stevenson-Yang, Wild Ride: A short history of the opening and closing of the Chinese economy