What the U.S. Can Learn from China: An Open-Minded Guide to Treating Our Greatest Competitor as Our Greatest Teacher

by Ann Lee

DEMOS Senior Fellow and self proclaimed "Tiger Mother of the U.S. economy" Ann Lee has a message for her fellow Americans: stop whining about China and start learning from them instead. She focuses on what Chinese success can teach us in several broad areas: education policy, economic policy and financial markets, foreign policy, strategic planning, and the benefits of a meritocratic political system.

Genres: China, Nonfiction, Economics

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 9, 2012

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a useful book that shows that there are no good guys and bad guys, just different approaches, each with their own flaws and advantages. It was fairly discouraging to read about many of the ways in which the US is losing its way, but there is hope. Looking to China as a competitor to be respected, rather than an enemy to be feared and resented, is a fine start.

[Richard Sjoquist · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book with great anticipation, as it is the first to turn the mirror on American economic policy and planning, from a comparative perspective involving China, and it does so insightfully and compellingly. Lee clearly speaks as the insider she is on financial matters, and as one who has long straddled two cultures. The prudent pragmatism of China's leadership has helped it to avoid the fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union, though it has not been able to take the Japanese path to international economic power, instead having to settle for a tremendous amount of direct foreign investment. That said, the Chinese have shown a remarkable willingess to adapt and learn from the West, both good and bad, how to conduct economic policy. The book makes abundantly evident that despite the advantage of being able to make policy decisions arbitrarily, the Chinese leadership has been stewards of a cautious course of economic development that has mostly served the country well, though the rapid economic rise has inevitably led to a large wealth gap, exacerbated by rampant corruption. Of course, industrial espionage and until recently wholesale copyright violation has not hurt their cause any, nor has the ability to control the banking system, and regulate the currency by refusing to make it readily convertible. All this aside, China has made planning decisions relatively free from political interference, and not only because of one-party rule.

Where I find fault in this book--and where I think the author is on shaky ground--is in her analysis of American foreign policy. On this topic she overextends herself well beyond her area of expertise, which I found off-putting. Her perception that China has used its soft power shrewdly is mistaken: its policies appeal to mutual economic benefit without regard for their moral and ethnical ramifications. Never mind that China looks the other way while conducting trade with Iran, North Korea, and the Sudan, among other rogue regimes, or that it enforces colonial rule on Tibet and Xinjiang, and attempts to lay claim hundreds of kilometers of coastal waters. In an interview recently with CCTV News in Beijing, Lee insinuated that American propaganda (which is how she characterizes our campaign for human rights and democracy) paves the way for the military industrial complex. She also described our use of soft power as hypocritical, making the speciously narrow claim that the treatment of Black men in our prison system excludes us from being able to condemn human rights violations abroad. In this regard, she is either naive or disingenuous, but in either case playing the role of the useful idiot.

[Ava Courtney Sylvester · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brilliant premise, questionable execution

Ann Lee is absolutely right in that the United States has much to learn from China, and she makes a particularly excellent case for the utility of Confucian values, investment in technology and infrastructure, focus on long-term goals, building soft power alongside and in collaboration with developing nations, and committing to serving its people by drastically improving their standard of living. That said, I feel the book's take on China's crackdown on protests and dissent to be particularly troubling; these people are not akin to the terrorists America combats, as Lee asserts, but are the very citizens China is supposed to serve. They may be temporarily disrupting the civil order, as Lee points out, but some of the protestors could help China build a better, more robust society for all, if only the government would listen. More troubling to me, the book never once addresses the alarming state surveillance programs, labor conditions tantamount to slavery, or the genocide of the Uyghur people.

While Lee is certainly right that the United States is guilty of these crimes and far worse, I would like to hear her argument in defense of these practices in China. In my opinion, human rights should apply to all people everywhere.

[Akshita Nanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Economics- based and almost Confucian comparison of the countries, which centres the Chinese leadership's 'service' and 'long-range planning' mentality. The accuracy of the model is of course up for debate.

[Kimfu]

"What the U.S. Can Learn From China: An Open-Minded Guide to Treating Our Greatest Competitor as Our Greatest Teacher" was Book No. 11 for 2013.

I think I'd like to re-read this book every year!