China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know

What Everyone Needs to Know

by Arthur R. Kroeber

China's economic growth has been revolutionary, and is the foundation of its increasingly prominent role in world affairs. It is the world's second biggest economy, the largest manufacturing and trading nation, the consumer of half the world's steel and coal, the biggest source of international tourists, and one of the most influential investors in developing countries from southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America. Multinational companies make billions of dollars in profits in China each year, while traders around the world shudder at every gyration of the country's unruly stock markets. Perhaps paradoxically, its capitalist economy is governed by an authoritarian Communist Party that shows no sign of loosening its grip.

China is frequently in the news, whether because of trade disputes, the challenges of its Belt and Road initiative for global infrastructure, or its increasing military strength. China's political and technological challenges, created by a country whose political system and values differ dramatically from most of the other major world economies, creates uncertainty and even fear.

China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know� is a concise introduction to the most astonishing economic and political story of the last three decades. Arthur Kroeber enhances our understanding of China's changes and their implications. Among the essential questions he answers are: How did China grow so fast for so long? Can it keep growing and still solve its problems of environmental damage, fast-rising debt and rampant corruption? How long can its vibrant economy co-exist with the repressive one-party state? How do China's changes affect the rest of the world?

This thoroughly revised and updated second edition includes a comprehensive discussion of the origins and development of the US-China strategic rivalry, including Trump's trade war and the race for technological supremacy. It also explores the recent changes in China's political system, reflecting Xi Jinping's emergence as the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. It includes insights on changes in China's financial sector, covering the rise and fall of the shadow banking sector, and China's increasing integration with global financial markets. And it covers China's rapid technological development and the rise of its global Internet champions such as Alibaba and Tencent.

Genres: China, Economics, Politics, History, Business, Nonfiction, Asia

416 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2016

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

China's Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know by Arthur R. Kroeber is a concise and interesting text that lays out the basics of China's economy. It covers this topic from China's political, financial and social structures, examining topics like demographics, financing business and government, the nature of Chinese political power, and China's ambitions on the global stage. This book is both simple and comprehensive; it examines multiple competing factors in China's economy, while staying away from intricate economic calculations and analysis. It also avoids and even dispels many of the tropes of China's business and political culture, challenging the notion of rampant Executive power, Chinese economic cheating, and so on. Kroeber instead focuses on the facts, and offers a clear analysis of the topic at hand, which is admirable, and makes the book more engaging and authoritative.

Interesting topics abound in this text. China's demographics is shifting and, within the next 30 years or so, will be a population on a demographic decline. China's crude one child policy was a feature of this decline, but Kroeber argues that it is a natural occurrence due to China's growing affluence. China has been successful at bringing some 700 million Chinese citizens out of poverty, and although the country is much poorer (in GDP per capita) than many Western countries, it has certainly been successful at gradually and successfully improving the standard of living for most Chinese citizens. Another interesting topic was China's growing interest in making itself a more prominent economic power. It's continued participation in many multilateral trade agreements and agencies, as well as the development of its own - the interesting and controversial Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to counter the US/Japanese dominated Asian Development Bank, has seen much needed capital promised for development across the Asia-Pacific region. China is also looking to set up the Reminbi as a global currency, although this project is still very much incomplete. China's environmental issues are also examined, as China struggles to cut its reliance on coal, the only energy resource it has in abundance. This is a difficult feat, as China cannot strategically rely to heavily on energy imports - lest this is used as an economic weapon by rival states. China has increased investments in renewable energy resources and technologies, while also looking to alter its business funding strategies to encourage the development of more efficient manufacturing and service industries, which will move away from the infrastructure and energy intensive production and funding techniques currently in place in China.

Kroeber also examines the upcoming strategies in China. China is looking to increase its import security by constructing the "One Belt, One Road" initiative - a series of roads, ports, railways and infrastructure projects both across Central Asia, and through the Indian Ocean. China's internal policy revolves around a few factors: Xi Jinping wishes to secure the CCP's position as China's only political force, and is focusing on centralizing key political positions through the creation of Leading Small Groups - steering committees for important topics like the economy, foreign security, and environmental concerns. China is also looking to liberalize the economy by promoting private enterprise, and continuing to slowly erode the power of its State Owned Enterprises - which are on the whole quite wasteful in terms of efficiency, and often part of China's corruption issues. China is focusing on transitioning its economy away from its manufacturing lead approach, and is trying to do so by improving efficiencies and encouraging the growth of its own consumer economy.

Kroeber also looks to combat stereotypes on Chinese economics. He disapproves of the notion that China is looking to steal manufacturing away from Western nations. Quite the opposite, much of China's raw material imports continue to come from other countries, and the vast rise in China's labour wages is encouraging many countries to seek manufacturing options in Africa and Asia. He examines the conflict between China's external security interests, and its desire for continued economic growth, noting the unease many countries have about allowing to much Chinese economic investment domestically (probably warranted), but also noting China's long standing domestic policy of non-interference. This seems to be changing under the leadership of Xi Jinping, but so far China's record of non-interference in foreign affairs is pretty solid. This conflict will probably play out within China's political system, and could potentially see (or has seen) the creation of two competing policy interests within the country. As it is right now, China seems to shy away from direct confrontation, and usually seeks multilateral solutions to its problems - bar the South China Sea dispute. Finally, the notion of China being the "workshop of the world" is examined. Although China is able to create cheap goods that are globally competitive, it has also seen a large increase in labour wages, making it a less attractive option for multinational firms looking to offshore costs. China is also relatively low tech in terms of its technological prowess in comparison to Western nations. This would make it difficult for China to be too assertive as a global economic power, as nations like South Korea and Japan operate at much higher levels of technological development, and focus on product quality in a way China cannot match as of yet. This is beginning to change, but will take time, as technologies and intellectual capital take time and experience to gain, and China has only been operating at its current economic trajectory for a few decades.

Kroeber also notes the gradual decrease in Chinese growth rates, and posits at how this may effect China and its internal politics. Currently, there is a high degree of support for China's authoritarian style system domestically (as far as observers can tell anyway, as official statistics do not exist), as it seems the high growth rate and rapidly improving social conditions are strong enough factors to keep many satisfied. China couples this with sharp crackdowns, and control over the information systems in the country, as the Tienanmen Square crackdown, or China's harsh repression over its blogging and information spheres can contest. These factors seem to be effective at maintaining the CCP's current political shape and stability. China has constantly been able to defy Western observers who couple economic growth with political liberalization. However, this issue has not played out, and China is certainly a nation that has changed vastly and dramatically within the last few decades. I believe this dilemma has not been comprehensibly solved, so it is difficult for me to buy into any conclusions.

Many more topics are covered; suffice to say I quite enjoyed my time with this book. It is comprehensive while also maintaining a concise and readable format. It is not overly technical, while being well sourced and containing interesting statistics and figures. It contains excellent and relevant information on China's current economic structures. Not to be missed by China watchers, or those looking for a good analysis of China's economy.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

For anyone interested in China's economy there are some good statistics and things to pull out of this but this guy's mainstream economic views are really irritating. I really don't understand how people can look around at what's going on in the world and continue to glorify things like development, growth, increased consumerism, innovation and "efficiency" (the way economists use the word, not actually saving energy and resources like it's supposed to mean). We're already using way more than the planet can sustain and these idiots are telling us not to worry because the damage tends to level off as countries become fully developed. Well, whoopdee fucking doo. I guess we should all just sheepishly let things run their course then, right? So stupid. Even the leveling off phase is horrible since it's not just a result of things like recycling and updated factory designs. Instead businesses are basically just coming up with ways to get people to buy things that they used to get for free. Plus, with economic systems that require growth, if they survive long enough, eventually everything is being bought and sold and technologies can't be improved or miniaturized any further, then resource use and pollution have to start increasing again for the economy to keep growing. I mean, this isn't rocket science. It's unbelievable that so many people are still pretending that there's nothing wrong with infinite growth. I have no patience for it anymore.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Accessible, well-written and broad, this book does a really good job covering what it says it will. As a general layperson interested in China, this was a great introduction to their economy, with sufficient depth to make me feel like I learned something. Kroeber challenged certain common ideas people have about China, particularly that they are a currency manipulator, which Kroeber says they are not, and that they unfairly subsidize their SOEs. To that last point Kroeber points out that it clear that the SOEs are not run nearly as well and efficiently as their private counterparts. If any subsidization is happening (beyond what many countries do), it is certainly not creating really competitive companies.

It is not uncommon to hear a fear among certain Americans of China's economy eclipsing ours. This is likely to happen at some point just because their population is so much larger than ours. But it really doesn't mean anything more than that. They are not close to the level of wealth in our country, and they are not leaders in really any technological field. Take the IPhone for example - it is merely assembled in China, all of the serious technology comes from companies in other countries, including the US, South Korea (Samsung), and Taiwan (Foxconn).

China's "middle class" is much poorer than other developing countries' middle classes. What we would consider middle class is really upper class in China. Kroeber discusses why there hasn't been any meaningful civil unrest, and one reason may be that the "middle class" is actually quite poor.

Because China is a communist country, it is easy for us to dismiss them and their strategies. But it is really interesting to see what they have done to sustain growth for such a long time despite many headwinds, which still exist and may yet rear their head.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those interested in economics this is a must read, China has a strange economic setup of which only bits and pieces are reported on in the mass media and much of that coverage is nonsense. It's not just about money, it covers the society and politics that formed the new China out of the ashes of a starving, poorly governed country to one that provides a decent living for most of its citizens. These gains came from a relaxing of economic rules and a changeover from state to private enterprises while the Communist party tightly controlled the political world.

Is China going to wipe out the US economy? Like Japan did in the 1980s? (hint: they didn't). The book takes a stab at predicting the economic future of China and wonders if Xi Jinping's leadership takeover signals the end of economic expansion along with other factors.

A great read, if you write SF novels, you might be able to steal some ideas so you don't have to use monarchies as the go to political system. The only downside is this book is slightly dated thru no fault of its own, it was written prior to The Asshole in ChiefTrump.

[Carlos Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful overview of China's economy. A bit overly pro-privatisation, but definitely worth a read for those with an interest in the topic.

[Sourav · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I have come across on China's economy. The author is well versed and has performed extensive research (both primary and secondary). His views seem unbiased and based on economic logic. This book could also be a great source for references. I would suggest this book for anyone looking to understand China's economy. In fact, the way China's economy is reflected in media is debunked by the author.

[Jay French · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read a number of books and magazine articles about the Chinese economy and the future, as well as listening to many podcasts and news stories over the past few years. These sources tended to extremes when forecasting the future, and often offered wildly differing forecasts. Either China becomes the ruler of global finances, spreading its influence through Asia, Africa, and the world and replacing the US and the EU. Or it fails through some weakness. There are many weaknesses reported in various sources, including corruption, a rapidly aging population, lack of inventiveness, pollution, uneven wealth distribution, and more. These opposite forecasts make me wonder which is correct. I read this book hoping to understand this better.

“China’s Economy” does a good job of describing the many winds in favor of China, while also covering those winds that blow ill. In the final reconning, I would say that those opposite forecasts were both wrong to some extent, but also both correct. China’s economy will continue to grow, through occasional setbacks. But the many setbacks would appear to be enough to keep China from taking a strong lead in becoming the main global economy and will restrict the country to be one of a handful of global financial superpowers, at best.

This book was written in a non-academic style, but did a great job of explaining the issues, providing background, and describing the scenarios for the future. I appreciated the summation in the final chapters laying out the interplay of issues and their impact on the future. Note this was released before the Trump foreign policy era began, so you can tell that some of the options listed were no longer likely given the beginning of tighter scrutiny from the US. I would give this another 3 or 4 years before needing a major update. That’s not bad for this type of book.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

American should read this book, if, as is likely, they don't have a good basic grasp of China's economy.

After reading this book, I realized I had a nearly cartoonish understanding of China. In particular, my understanding was (and still is, I suppose) distorted by the intentionally misleading messaging by our military and political institutions. This book lays out in very plain language the major issues of China's development over the last 40 years and the issues it faces today and in the future.

China will likely be the most important foreign policy story for the US for the rest of my lifetime. I really know little about Asia in general and China in particular. I have been much more interested in Europe. However, the China story since Deng's reform and openness of 1979 is truly remarkable. It is a story of dogged and intentional success. After reading this book, I have a much better independent understanding of the daily newspaper articles I read.

[Brecht Rogissart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives you exactly what the title promises: a well informed and strong analysis of China's economy since the reformation started in the 1980s. It is grounded in a historical and comparative framework with Soviet Union, Latin American countries, and other East Asian Tigers. Doing this, the author succeeds in constructing a robust framework to localise China's rise in its specificity and general characteristics of developing economy. This book is key for a materialist reading of China's rise beyond Western/pro-Chinese propaganda.

In thirteen chapters, the author describes the development of the key dimensions of the Chinese economy: agriculture and urbanization, the export economy, the private-public enterprise system, the fiscal system of the decentralised (!) Chinese state, the financial system, energy, demography,... In every chapter, his narrative is built around often-heard questions and opinions about China. It is thus also a good book for debating purposes. Did China "undervalue its currency to promoto export?" He has a short yet insightful answer in one page. But if you put all his answers together, read through the whole chapter, there's an insightful overall picture as well. A book both for the debater and the analysist!

Overall, Kroeber's main conclusion is that China's economic rise has been a grand success, which has lifted 800 million Chinese people out of poverty, created a new middle class, and has benefited the world economy at large. Writing in 2016, he concluded that although China is increasingly trying to translate this economic power into political power since Jinping's office, we should not make the conclusion that China is ready and willing to challenge American hegemony. He is very cautious to depict China as an agressive/imperialist power, constantly making the comparison to the US (for example, in terms of foreign interventions, military etc.) to reveal who the real imperialist still is. But, there's no naive "China good"-narrative as well. Moreover, when referring to the Chinese threats to Western jobs, he refers first of all to the internal struggle in Western countries as the prime mover, rather than blaming everything on China. Ultimatily, he asserts that the global economy has enough space for US and China, and that the differences should be acknowledged but not battled over. I admire his optimism and I'm curious how his views have changed since 2016.

Still, Kroeber is critical of Chinese political repression. He characterizes China as a "bureaucratic-authoritarian one-party state, in principle highly centralized but in practice substantially decentralized." It is not a dictatorship of one person, but all political struggles are fought out within the party in non-democratic ways. Meanwhile, the economy was increasingly allowed to be determined by market dynamics, which is not a fatal contradiction as most Westerners would belief. In contrast, Kroeber (economically def a liberal, as he thinks markets are always more efficient) argues that it is economic development, springing from liberalisations, that has allowed the Party to remain politically in power, as people are actually getting better lives. In addition, Kroeber highlights that the social safety net, schooling etc. is really good for a recently developped country. Deng Xiaoping commented that Gorbatsjov was "an idiot" for putting political reforms ahead of economic ones, which summarizes China's mix of economic liberalisation and political authoritarianism well. Kroeber does not think the repression will change soon. It has to come from the Chinese people eventually, but there's no well-structured political oppossition in any way. The repression actually accelerated in the first few years of Jinping's rule.

So what were these economic reforms and how did China develop? In many ways, their historical growth is very similar to the other East Asian Tigres (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan), fitting well within a classic "catch-up" development growth model along Lewis' framework. There were some differences, of course.

First, China was not incorporated within the US alliance structure. Japan, South Korea etc. got immense programs of technical assistance, while China had to figure it out on its own. Ironically, this made China more dependent upon Foreign Direct Investments: if it did not receive the necessary support from the US government, it had to attract American companies, bringing the technology with them. It had to open up and play by the market's rules, but it did not have to accept the liberal-democratic framework.

Second, China is communist, meaning its development started with a strong state-sector, which the communists did not want to let go of so easily. They did allow for (more efficient) private firms and market competition, but they pushed hard to make the state companies competitive rather than disposing of them. So, while (foreign) private firms have a big chunck of the Chinese economy, the state companies still have a lot of inluence and is used for economic policy. The state's grip on the economy is a constant trade-off for the communists: How much and what kind of power are they willing to sacrifice, in exchange for how much and what kind of economic growth?

Kroeber is, however, not fully optimistic about the future growth of the Chinese economy. In many ways, it has gone through its initial phase "easy" of catch-up growth, and now struggles to keep up the expactations. Major indicators show there's a slowdown. This resulted in some economic issues, in which 2008 was a tipping point (however, not enough stressed by Kroeber). First, most local authorities (who have a lot of executive power) are in a lot of debt: since only Beijing can issue debt, they had to hedge land values to obtain loans through sketchy constructions to do their jobs. Also, inequality has risen a lot and the housing market dynamics are - unfortunately - all too familiar for a Western reader like me. They were also too much reliant on exports - with having current account surpluses over 10% of GDP in 2007 - just before the 2008 crash. As the world economy went into recession, Chinese exports faltered. In response, the Chinese government started a massive government fiscal stimulus package, which worked, but massively increased the debt-level of Chinese economy: from 130% of GDP to 210% of GDP, mostly invested in not-so-much-productive stuff. Kroeber argues that the Chinese economy is now in a crucial phase where it has to transform its development model from a purely export economy and start stimulating internal demand. This is also what the Chinese government is going for at the moment. They decided to push down the current account surpluses, which has been hovering around 2% since 2010.

There's much more in this book, but I have to limit myself. If there's one point of critique, is that the continuity of Maoist era to the reform era is undervalued. Kroeber basically says that 1978 was a key year where the whole development strategy was altered. Might be true, but the necessary preconditions, built in Maoist China, are completely out of the picture. For example, it is interesting how important it is for Kroeber that China has economically assimilated within the US dominated world economy, while directly oppossing it in political terms. The decolonial movement, where communists made a radical break with the existing political constellation in 1949 seems of utmost importance for China to be really free politically speaking. If we take Kroeber's point to its limits, whe might conclude that other developping countries within the US hegemony were allowed to develop, but only in so far as it alligned with American interests. Japan is an interesting case-study here, whose magnificent growth just stopped as it was being dragged into the 1970s crisis of American economic hegemony. China, in the ruins of this crisis, could independently navigate within the global economy. I believe this could be Mao's (unintended, of course) achievement.

At last, I hope we kept the body of Oscar Lange intact, because we'll have to revive him soon and make him reasses his market socialism.

[Diego · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books to read. It's a good introduction to the basics of the Chinese economy. Read this on my way to Beijing, helped immensely to understand my surroundings. Also with in-depth conversations with the ex-pats there. Very eye opening. I will expand on this and continue to read more about the ass-backwards Chinese political and economical structure, though they find ways to make it work.
Look forward to read more on the renminbi. So much fake currency floating around there it was hard to argue with the locals the authenticity of the bills.
The rise of the renminbi for foreign investment will heavily depend on clamping down on counterfeit prints.
Fascinating book.

[Tùng Hoàng · Rating 4 out of 5]

SỰ TRỖI DẬY CỦA MỘT CƯỜNG QUỐC – CÁI NHÌN TỪ BÊN TRONG

Tên gốc: China’s Economy - What Everyone Needs to Know
Tác giả: Arthur R. Kroeber

“Cải cách kinh tế giống như đi bộ trên dây qua một cái hố không đáy – và sợi dây thừng phía sau bạn đang cháy.”

Đầu tiên, trước khi bàn về “chiến lược” kinh tế của các nhà lãnh đạo Trung Quốc hay sự phát triển thần kỳ thành một siêu cường kinh tế thế giới hiện nay, chúng ta có thể lưu ý rằng công cuộc cải cách của họ được mô tả với cụm từ “dò đá qua sông - một quá trình thử nghiệm không có gì bảo đảm, tuy được dẫn đường bởi các mục tiêu và nguyên tắc to lớn nhất định, nhưng không có bất kỳ lối đi có sẵn nào”. Một mô tả đã được ghi chính thức trong nội dung Nghị quyết Hội nghị trung ương 3 khoá XVIII của Đảng Cộng sản Trung Quốc tháng 11/2013, là một văn kiện quan trọng về chiến lược và phác thảo tầm nhìn phát triển kinh tế.

“China’s Economy - What Everyone Needs to Know” là kết quả của hơn mười năm của Arthur R. Kroeber ở Bắc Kinh khi đắm mình trong các câu hỏi về kinh tế và xã hội Trung Quốc. Nội dung cuốn sách mở đầu với các bố cục chính trị tổng quát của Trung Quốc, từ đó đi sâu vào phân tích các hoạt động kinh tế, công nghiệp, cơ sở hạ tầng cấu thành nên sự phát triển thần kỳ trong những năm từ 1980 đến 2010. Tiếp theo, “hệ thần kinh” của nền kinh tế, tổ chức của các doanh nghiệp tư nhân được mổ xẻ kỹ lưỡng và đi sâu vào chi tiết như: hệ thống tài khóa, tài chính, năng lượng, cơ cấu về dân số và thị trường lao động. Phần cuối của cuốn sách đưa ra những nhận xét về nỗ lực của Trung Quốc trong việc chuyển đổi kiểu tăng trưởng kinh tế từ “huy động nguồn lực đầu tư đơn thuần” sang “sử dụng các nguồn lực một cách có hiệu quả” và ý nghĩa của sự trỗi dậy thành siêu cường kinh tế của Trung Quốc đối với phần còn lại của thế giới.

Có thể nói ngắn gọn về nội dung cuốn sách, Trung Quốc là một câu chuyện thành công lớn về kinh tế. Chỉ trong ba thập kỷ, Trung Quốc đã trỗi dậy từ một vị thế ngoài lề để trở thành nền kinh tế lớn thứ hai thế giới, quốc gia thương mại lớn nhất, và là một trong những cơ sở sản xuất quan trọng nhất. Thu nhập trung bình đã tăng lên từ mức chỉ hơn mức đủ sống một chút, lên mức trung bình toàn cầu, giảm số người sống trong cảnh nghèo đói từ hơn 800 triệu xuống còn khoảng 80 triệu. Trung Quốc đã đạt được kết quả này thông qua áp dụng thành công mô hình tăng trưởng kinh tế mạnh mẽ vay mượn từ các nước láng giềng Đông Á (Nhật Bản, Hàn Quốc, Hồng Kông, Đài Loan); chính sách kinh tế thực dụng và linh hoạt; và vận may chiếm lĩnh vị trí địa lý thuận lợi cho phép nó tận dụng những thành công đi trước của các quốc gia châu Á khác cũng như sự tăng trưởng phi thường trong thương mại toàn cầu. Trung Quốc sẽ tiếp tục phát triển tương đối nhanh chóng và tiếp tục mở rộng vị thế vốn đã rất lớn trong tương lai.

Tuy nhiên, cần phải khách quan nhìn nhận rằng: dù Trung Quốc hiện giờ là quốc gia lớn và hùng mạnh trong hầu hết các khía cạnh, nhưng đó vẫn chưa phải là một quốc gia dẫn đầu. Về mặt công nghệ, Trung Quốc vẫn còn tụt đằng xa sau các nền kinh tế tiên tiến ở Bắc Mỹ, châu Âu và Nhật Bản. Về mặt chính trị, hệ thống chuyên chính quan liêu của nó dường như đã thích nghi tốt với các điều kiện ở Trung Quốc, nhưng lại không tương thích với các nước có thu nhập vừa và cao khác với một hệ thống cởi mở hơn. Trung Quốc tuy không xuất khẩu mô hình phát triển kinh tế của mình, nhưng có hai nước nhỏ ở châu Phi (Rwanda và Ethiopia) đã mô phỏng và đạt được một số thành công nhất định (tăng trưởng GDP trung bình hàng năm từ 8-11%). Về mặt trí thức và văn hóa, Trung Quốc tạo ra tương đối ít ảnh hưởng và có phần lép vế trước sự thống trị của văn hóa Mỹ, châu Âu trên thế giới nói chung hay Nhật Bản, Hàn Quốc ở châu Á nói riêng.

Nhưng sự trỗi dậy mạnh mẽ của Trung Quốc đã gây ra sự lo lắng sâu sắc đối với phần còn lại của thế giới. Nỗi lo lắng sâu sắc nhất bắt nguồn từ chính điều được cho là nghịch lý về sự kết hợp thành công của nền kinh tế năng động với hệ thống chính trị chuyên chính. Trong nhiều năm, các nhà nghiên cứu đã tin rằng sự kết hợp này là không bền vững và cuối cùng Trung Quốc sẽ phải chấp nhập “đức tin chân chính của nền dân chủ tự do”, nhưng chính thực tế đã bác bỏ đức tin này của các nhà lý luận phê bình. Đúng là hệ thống chính trị quan liêu của Trung Quốc được thành lập trên các nguyên tắc hoàn toàn khác với các nguyên tắc của các nền dân chủ phương Tây. Nhưng tính chính danh về chính trị dựa trên nền quản trị hiệu quả, một nền kinh tế công nghiệp tăng trưởng cao đã đạt được sự đồng thuận cao trong xã hội Trung Quốc, nơi nguyên lý “thiên mệnh” đã là nền tảng cho hệ thống chính trị, kinh tế, xã hội trải hàng ngàn năm lịch sử.

Bài học về sự phát triển thần kỳ của Trung Quốc là thực tế sinh động về sự vận dụng hợp lý các nguồn lực và nắm bắt hiệu quả các cơ hội xung quanh. Câu chuyện thành công này không đến với những quốc gia dành phần lớn thời gian để đổ lỗi cho các thế lực bên ngoài (chủ nghĩa đế quốc Hoa Kỳ, chủ nghĩa thực dân châu Âu, Nhật Bản, giá cả hàng hóa...), hay xây dựng bức tường bảo hộ cực đoan hạn chế dòng chảy hàng hóa, đầu tư và ý tưởng thì luôn bị tụt hậu. Ở bất kỳ đâu, kẻ thù thực sự trong cuộc đấu tranh vươn đến thịnh vượng không phải là đối thủ cạnh tranh bên ngoài mà lại chính là từ giới tinh hoa trong nước, những người luôn cố gắng giữ gìn đặc quyền của mình bằng cách đánh đổi lợi ích của những người còn lại. “Sự đổi mới, giáo dục, sự cởi mở và một nhà nước tái phân phối” là những vũ khí đáng tin cậy và cần thiết trong cuộc chiến kinh tế - chính trị sống còn này đối với mỗi quốc gia hiện nay.

“Dám thất bại, có nghĩa là bạn đã gần đến thành công” – T.H

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Điểm đánh giá: 8.5/10

Nhận xét: Khi biết sự khó khăn về quá trình xuất bản cuốn sách: không được phát hành ở Trung Quốc và phải đổi tên khi phát hành ở Việt Nam, bản thân tôi rất trân trọng những nỗ lực của đội ngũ biên tập và xuất bản sách khi tìm mọi cách để cuốn sách hay và ý nghĩa này đến được với đông đảo độc giả. Cuốn sách là một cẩm nang về nền kinh tế Trung Quốc với nhiều nhận xét sâu sắc, khách quan và đa chiều. Tuy có phần khó đọc vì khối lượng nội dung trải rộng với nhiều thuật ngữ, chỉ số kinh tế chuyên ngành, nhưng người đọc thông thường vẫn có thể tiếp cận và có thêm những cái nhìn khách quan hơn về Trung Quốc, một siêu cường kinh tế mới nổi, từ đó, có cái nhìn rõ hơn sự tác động đến Việt Nam chúng ta và những biến động kinh tế - chính trị của thế giới gần đây.

[Stuart Woolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot from this book - not only about China, but also about how macroeconomics works in a more general way. The author did a good job of focusing attention on important issues that largely go unnoticed in the West. (It may be old news to someone better read in economics that price ceilings on politically-sensitive goods regularly result in corruption, as officials sell those goods in open markets. I was also unaware that the privatization of the urban housing market resulted in the largest wealth transfer in human history... and is responsible for the urban-rural inequality persisting to this day.)

It is clear Kroeber is a capable economist, well-read in his field, and I appreciated his habit of giving China the benefit of the doubt. Still, I sometimes felt his analysis to be overly paradigmatic - I doubt, for example, he would have predicted China's rise forty years ago. His thesis that China must change its development strategy in a more liberal and services-oriented direction to continue its present rate of growth is not a convincing one, and it has not aged well since it was published in 2016. (In fairness to Kroeber, the infrastructure-intensive Belts & Road Initiative was still in its formative stages, and Xi Jinping had not yet abolished term limits.)

China may prove to the world there is space for command economies with sophisticated ideas about domestic development and capturing value in export markets. It has already lifted millions of people out of poverty. We should applaud China's efforts on this front, not qualify them with predictions of imminent doom.

[Fearless Leader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dated, but provides useful observations on Chinese political economy.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 / 5.0. Comprehensive Survey of Major topics in the evolution and current dynamic of today's Chinese economy. Balanced fact based analysis investigates and challenges many common Shibboleths of public and political. Comparative analysis relates policy at stage to devellopment to that of 1800's USA, Japan, and East Asian Tigers. Overall picture of respect for future challenges emerges along with admiration for the rapid yet comparatively minimally disruptive progress made to date.

[Kapil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars for getting good stats.

Though it seems book has been written on Chinese Government request. If book is about China's economy, not sure why author need to justify China's political positions and ambitions? 50% book is about justifying why China has done certain things and how those are unfounded blames by other countries specially by USA.

[Nikos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very educative although with a bit more information than I needed. Sheds a different light on China and explains well its achievement, performance, global standing and prospects.

[Chris Esposo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty good overview of China’s economy, mostly from the macroeconomic viewpoint. The book is not nearly as technical as Gregory Chow’s “China’s Economic Transformation”, which I have not yet read, but have surveyed/browsed briefly. There are no formal treatments of analysis via the standard national accounting identities. This book is more a “timely” deconstruction of China’s economy for a general “smart person” reader (or investor I suspect), who wishes to understand the nature of China’s economy, and the gov’ts policy so that they can make some kind of policy/business/investment decision based on news snippets they consume via the standard Western financial press. For this purpose, the book is more than adequate, it’s pretty good. However, reading the first edition of this book (published circa 2016), and comparing the author’s short term prediction on the nature of China’s economy with respect to innovation, one sees the limits of his analysis with respect to accurately forecasting the trajectory of China’s economy to the current state today (circa mid-2021). Thus, although much of the ‘current state’ analysis seems fairly accurate (both in ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ assessments of the economy), I would take the author’s predicative potency with a huge grain of salt.

The book covers, the key issues that most ‘informed’/read China observer in politics or the market would know about, the nature of urbanization, the development (or lack thereof) of rural lands and human capital, there’s a section on the Hukou system, it’s origins in antiquity and its function, and it’s pathologies, the configuration of China’s export driven economy, how it differents or is similar to the “Asian Tiger” economies that preceded it, the nature of China’s state-owned enterprises (SOE) vis-a-vis the private enterprise corporations and entities, the burgeoning financial system, the impact of growth on the environment, a elementary demographic deconstruction of China’s labor market, the shift over from manufacturing to consumer-led economy, and prospects for the future, with some commentary on China’s current and possible future capabilities on being a leading innovator. The key takeaways are that despite the label of being an ‘authoritarian’/non-market state/economy, decision making and economics is surprisingly decentralized, and this is one major advantage the PRC had over the USSR when the later attempted to liberalize it’s markets, but failed in the 1980s. Though how much this is still true is unknown after half a decade of consolidation led by China’s current president, Xi Jingping.

Another major issue the author points out is the disparity in factor-productivity of the class of SOEs vis-a-vis any other kind of firm in China is large, and this serves as a weight around China as it attempts to increase total factor productivity of it’s overall macroeconomy to something closer to Western standards (or at least to the levels of it’s neighbor ‘Asian Tigers’). This kind of analysis is what seems to inform broad forecasts of China’s YoY growth decreasing precipitously from the period of high-growth which ended in the early 2010s (which ranged from 8 - 10.5% for the later half of that period), to it’s current average which is approximately 5-6%. Though, as the author points out it may never be the case that China entirely liberalizes by cutting off these SOEs because it is political policy to have direct control of some of the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy. Likewise, this has also informed the evolution of China’s financial sector, with the People’’s Bank of China being a direct arm of the state, and with significant other financial institutions still having significant ties to the state, though this has actually liberalized much faster in recent years as the government has attempted to spur more growth/evolution of this sector.

Where the author falls short is his assessment on demographics and his assessment of China’s potential to be a major innovator .Both of analysis he provides are standard (or at least were standard up to very recently (circa 2021) ,but more recent history and thinking have started to cast doubt on these notions (including apparently from the author himself who from more recent videos seem to have changed his tune on the prospects of China being an innovator). In this book, the author is very skeptical of China's capability to become an innovator in many (or any) major sectors of technology or industry. The rationale is a combination of the fact that China is a relatively closed off society (which may have become worst since the writing of this edition of the book), and the related state-propensities for support ‘indigenous’ firms in certain sectors, the inability of China’s technology (and other consumer firms) to gain branding power and associated market-share outside of its borders, and the fact that current (circa 2015-16) thinking of China’s technology output is overstated as these are often accounting aggregation in intermediary production for Western goods (e.g. parts/components produced for the iPhone say). This is basically the ‘standard’ analysis with respect to China (or any nation’s capabilities to innovate).

However, in the past 4 - 5 years, China has not only been able to achieve leadership status in key engineering technologies, including internet-telephony, but also more theoretically driven fields like quantum information/computing, as well as make all-around gains in other fields of science and technology. It may one day soon surpass the United States both in aggregate output, and research contributions in the broader fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence, and though it’s brands are not as potent as the US (or Western brands), they have made significant headway, especially in much of Eurasia. This penetration of the brands have become so deep that US policy has now been crafted to combat/diminish this growth wherever possible, and especially within the borders of it’s own country. Likewise, though not all indigenous firms selected by the PRC have grown to be competitive champions in their field, many have, and the selection of these firms though not perfect, has not (yet) led to the profound issues experienced by Japan’s MITI or South American nations imposing import-substitution policies in the 70s and 80s. Thus, the author’s forecast in this important facet has been entirely wrong, or at the very least, profoundly understated with respect to China’s capacity to innovate.

Though I wouldn’t even lay the blame of this analysis at the author’s feet entirely. Basically the author’s analysis biases things staying the same (upto to the time of his analysis), and this is basically what many theories in this field basically predict. It is hard to detect punctuation/regime-change in markets/innovation by the very nature of those things. Thus, the analysis provided often doesn't have much novel information content with respect to forecasting, though they may be excellent descriptions of the current state. More often than not, these forecasts are a product of wish-fulfillment and groupthink from an orthodoxy. Even the author’s assessment of China’s demographic issues, which seems to be accurate from a historical and current-state standpoint, hinged too much on the notion of ‘demographic premium’. This is that having more younger cohorts (or a ‘bump’ within this age-strata) provided a nation with significant potential for growth, and thus one could forecast a nation’s mid/longer term growth potential based heavily on this feature of a nation’s socio-demographic. It was this argument most that was focused on in the late aughts and mid 2010s that policy/financial pundits predicted the relative decline of China vis-a-vis India and that “China would become old before it became rich”. Yet now we see that India’s significant demographic premium may not actually be a benefit for that nation, but a major liability with it’s economy again failing, with a very uncertain recovery trajectory induced both by Covid-19 and very poor/uneven execution on economic reform in the decade prior to Covid and after the 2009-10 global recession. No analysts were stating this possibility, even though we’ve observed very similar situations occurring in parts of the Magreb and other formerly labeled “third world” regions of the world.

Another facet of China’s unique strength that was not captured by this book was the surprising robustness of it’s manufacturing and supply chain network. When thought of as a singular machine, this factory/logistic system ended up being far more innovative and resistant to external-migration than previously thought. Not only is it not the case that China’s manufacturing can easily be substituted for capacity in other cheaper/less developed nations, but in fact the factory/logistic machinery is being endowed with high-technology indigenously developed in China itself to secure itself a very deep moat for such encroachment. We no longer think of India being able to substitute China’s manufacturing capacity, and despite enthusiastic and vigorous policies within the US and other nations to dislodge China’s foothold on manufacturing, export from China to the world has only increased in the past year. Though this could end up being a slow process of chipping away, this assumes no agency on the Chinese part to improve the efficiency and attractiveness of their own supply chain, thus leading to a costly and unproductive spiral of state-driven industrial policy that eats up tax dollars, with very little if any benefit to consumers or citizens in either country.

Still, the book is definitely good as a more-or-less accurate statement of facts in China's historical economic development upto circa 2010. Also insightful were how the political economy of China differed from South Korea and Japan, which being part of the US alliance system, had more free reign of it’s firms operating unhindered in the US domestic market (although not without hiccups as anyone who reads/studies the automobile industry of the 1970s and 80s will understand). I’ve not read the author’s second edition, I presume he addresses many of these issues and updates his analysis. It is definitely just a first/intro read, much deeper study (a la Chow) will have to be engaged in to have a more functional knowledge set of China’s economy. Recommended.

[Frank Stein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although it drags a little towards the end, and gets a tad repetitive, this book is doubtless the best single-volume you'll find on China's economy. It disproves many bromides, and focuses on the essential aspects of what is the most important economic story of the 21st century.

One of the hardest things to grasp about China's economy is that in has gone through many different stages in many sectors, few of which overlap. For instance, as regards urbanization, the average annual change in the urban population went from barely positive in the twenty years to 1978 (the proportion actually fell to 18% of all China's population), to about 12 million a year for the next twenty years to 1998, to 21 million a year over the next two decades. The housing boom has just recently peaked and leveled off, at about 2 billion new square meters a year, quadruple the level of 20 years earlier, and the steel and concrete that has fueled this boom has leveled off with it. The hukou, or registration system, which forbade most migrants from getting urban services, was the subject of national campaigns against them in 2011 and then 2014. In recent years, the "residence permit," tied to wherever someone lives rather than where they were born, has become more common in large cities. But the original hukou holders, who benefited from State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) housing privatization in 1997, got a benefit worth about a third of GDP almost free, and hukou holders today still constitute an upper strata of urban life.

Another emphasis is the surprising nature of China's socialism. By one measure, government spending as a proportion of GDP, China is not very socialist. Government revenue dropped from 30% in 1978 to just 11% in 1994, and the central government's proportion of that fell from 41% to 22%. But CCP officials were worried about decentralization and in 1994 they changed the mix, giving the central government 56% of revenue (mainly a VAT tax and some corporate income tax) and increasing the total spending to over 20% of GDP. Yet the provincial share of spending kept increasing, to 85% of all government expneditures, and most of that was filled by transfers from the top and, when those transfers started to slow, increasing fees and land sales from development, as well as debt from special financing vehicles. A 2015 the central government directive allowed local governments to issue bonds, instead of relying on off-balance sheet finance and banks, and this has helped push up total government debt to 75% of GDP, most of it local.

The real centers of power in China are the SOEs. These had 60% of the urban workforce before reform in 1998, but later fell to 15%. Their total assets are still almost 200% of GDP, and they create about 35% of output, way above any comparable developing country. These are actually more concentrated in services than in industry, and, contrary to belief, are usually not monopolies. There are 880 coal SOEs and 312 in steel, because many local governments start them. The SASAC since 2003 has congealed these from about 200 to 100 groups, but there are still over 20,000 companies under its control. The rate of return of these continues to fall even as Xi Jingping has emphasized their growth.

China's economic complexity, its successes and its failures, and the increasing dangers to its growth are all shown here. It's a refreshing look at an essential topic.

[Zoë Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 2016 so there's a lot that has happened since then....but Kroeber covers the history of reform going back to Deng era, with well-researched, illustrative stats that are very helpful if you are like me and wanted accessible aNd detailed background on China's economy. Also interesting to see how some tentative analysis played out, and to build on the points by looking at today's stats vs. these benchmarks and trends.

Some interesting points:

* virtually all taxes are paid by companies in China -- personal income tax is only 5% of gov revenue (compare with about half in the US in comparison)

*540 billion USD of wealth transfer to urban residents from housing privatization; divide in land rights compared w/ farmers and workers who did not get housing

*post great leap forward baby boom, falling estimated 16-30 million deaths, brought population from 680 million in '63 to 880 million in '73

*yes there is large migration within the country, but more complicated than just West to East coast narrative: in 1982 only 7 million people in all of China worked outside their native county...by 2012 this hit 163 million, and another 99 million moved within their own county

*Fertility rate went from 5 during boom, to 2.4 in 1980, 2.1 by 1990 (replacement rate), down to 1.5 in 2000. A large part of why the one-child policy remained was to keep the State Family Planning Commission and all of its workers in business...

*lowering share of GDP being consumption isn't as simple as a struggling services sector: high amounts of capital are needed to spend in order to drive modern industrial economy, and to provide new high-wage jobs – so you can go from the average person spending 700 of 800 dollars to 2600 of 3500, and consumption share of GDP has halved. Far more important is the rate of income growth -- social safety net is component of just and equitable society but will not spur consumption. Household share of national income needs to increase and should weaken incentives towards industry and investment

*massive shift of percentages to local gov, interplay btw central and local officials and effort to reorient officials from thinking of central gov as a glorified department of commerce and to focus on public goods and services instead

*economy resilient despite SOE reform labor market: urban SOE employment fell by 50 mil people, and about 30 mil people were laid off

* initial state-owned corp reform started, ministries were broken up and set in competitive spheres - so the important thing wasn't the right to private property but facilitating competition within the system. Setting up five large power-generation companies to compete until one is world-class maintained competition and control; Non-monopolistic nature of state sector can explain China's sustained growth

* a main advantage for policy experiment, like SEZ or innovations are large component in China's success, differentiated/opposed to India, which is formally decentralized but in practice highly centralized

*acquiescence of large middle-class who benefits disproportionately from status quo

*political positioning and technological capacity, on top of volume

*less focus on whether China's dominant success limited development aims of other countries

[Jerome Kuseh · Rating 4 out of 5]

China's economic miracle has been the source of much admiration from outsiders for several years now. Ever since Deng Xiaoping promoted an opening up of China's economy to foreign investment, the country's economy has expanded at unprecedented rates to today become the biggest threat to USA's sole superpower status.

The fascination with China's growth has been accompanied by deep misconceptions about the Chinese economy and Kroeber's book does an excellent job of dispelling these myths. For instance, China's reputation as a centralized, authoritarian regime clashes with the fact that it is much more decentralized than any other developed nation with provincial bureaucrats having significant policy leeway. Kroeber also provides strong arguments to counter accusations of China as a currency manipulator or a trade rules breaker.

An analysis of a nation's economy would not be complete without an analysis of its political system, and in only 336 pages, Kroeber covers an extensive range of issues such as rural-urban divide, environmental protection, demography, income & wealth inequality, the transition from industry to services, the policy differences between Hu Jintao & Ji Xinping, China's role in the world, China's relationship with South East and Central Asian nations, the prospects of China as THE leading global power and so on.

A simplistic summary of Kroeber's analysis is that China has exhausted the economic growth gains that an economy with a large labour force but little capital will realize as it increases the rate of capital to labour. He argues that China needs to now squeeze growth out of efficiency gains which Ji Xinping is doing through a crackdown on corruption. He believes these reforms are especially crucial as China's population gradually ages.

Perhaps the most important point to take from this book is that China's growth miracle has depended on a unique mix of factors - demography, demographic dividend, Hong Kong, the state of global trade at the time of opening - which cannot simply be replicated without contextual analysis. And perhaps rather than forming absolute opinions, such as saying democracy is the only political system that allows economic innovation, we should study real world events as much as possible to understand what works and why.

[Byrne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot but didn’t change my mind about anything. If you believe in the mainstream narrative about China’s economy—that it’s going to keep growing, but more slowly in the past; that China mostly excels in lower-tech manufacturing; that ghost cities are a symptom of fast growth, not an existential threat—then you’ll come away from this book with your opinions mostly unchanged.

Fun stuff I learned:

- China is very, very decentralized. 85% of government spending is at the sub-national level, compared to 25% for developed, democratic countries. Among other things, this decentralization means that China has a deep bench of leaders who have experience running a country-sized entity.
- China’s surprisingly freewheeling media/blog environment is a function of this decentralization. Bloggers are tacitly allowed to criticize local government so the national government can keep an eye on provinces. This must make government work in China incredibly stressful.
- Some allegedly huge cities in China are actually cities plus surrounding rural areas. Chongqing is described as a city, but has roughly the same land area as Austria.
- Land reform was, and is, a huge driver of inequality: city dwellers were allowed to buy their previously government-owned homes at artificially cheap prices. Property developers can buy farmland out from under farmers, also for artificially cheap.
- China’s growth has partly been due to easy comparisons: from 1958 to 1978, things got so bad the population actually got more rural.
- In 1998, bad debt was about a third of GDP. They grew their way out of this problem.
- Also in 1998, China has $45bn of foreign direct investment, $45bn of trade surplus, but had net FX inflows of just $5bn. The gap was due to 1) smuggling, and 2) people moving assets offshore. They’ve since cracked down.
- China’s tax system relies on corporate VAT. They have a clever decentralized way to collect them: VAT for a given company is determined by the price of their product minus VAT paid by their suppliers. State-owned enterprises pay their taxes and demand that suppliers do, too; suppliers force their suppliers to pay accurate VAT, and so on.

[Dulguun Gantumur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite an accessible book. It does require a rudimentary understanding of economics but overall accessible to both experts and those just getting started in trying to understand China, as it provides explanations for many of the analyses made. The book is organized into chapters that focus on a topic, and each chapter has a set of questions that one might ask about China's economy regarding that topic. This makes the book easy to navigate, and get common questions answered or misconceptions cleared. Each explanation is supported by a variety of statistics and graphs allowing the reader to have a visualization of the topic at hand as well.

The book debunks common myths and criticisms of the Chinese economy, while at the same time highlighting actual systemic issues with it. By the end of the book, the reader will have a strong understanding of the main issues afflicting the economy because some of them, such as an over-reliance on investment based growth, affects so many of the chapters' topics.

What I liked especially was how each chapter talked about Xi Jinping's plans for what the FUTURE of China is going to look like. It has been several years since this book was written but many of the criticisms and potential plans by Xi ring true even today.
Highly recommended for a reader looking to have the background to understand modern Chinese economy following the Reform and Opening period. For current analysis of the economy, more up-to-date sources should consulted however. But having this book as a background will be immensely helpful for comprehending those sources.

[Angela Kong · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent overview of China's economy, covering its political, social, and financial structures. Explores topics such as: China's agricultural and industrial age, population demographics & the rising elderly population, the interplay between state-owned and private enterprises, shifting economic policy from Deng's reign to Xi Jin Ping, and China's increasing political and economic influence on the global stage. One surprising fact I learned is that while China is in theory a centralized single-party state, in practice its local governments are very decentralized -- from a revenue and expenditure point of view, the most decentralized in the world, as they are responsible for raising much of the country's revenue. Kroeber argues that this is why local governments chose to sell land (versus enforce property taxes) after the privatization of urban housing, borrowing against expected property value gains that could then fund other government expenditures.

One topic I'm interested in diving more into is what (health) policy changes China is planning to support its burgeoning elderly population (estimates say by 2030, 1/4 of the population will be 60+).

[3thn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great cursory view of China's system of government and economy

[Amelia Greene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m currently in Kroebers class at NYU so I read this as part of my coursework but was pleasantly surprised at how readable this was for a dense book on Chinas history + economy.

[Ieuan Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good introductory book for China newbies. Looks like a text book but it stays quite light and engaging.

[Sherri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating read... well researched and well documented account of how China functions: why China is where it is and makes the decisions it makes. Only issue is it’s a little dated (written in 2015) but I’d still say it’s worth a read

[Henk De · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very valuable read, although it is hard to approach this topic from an unbiased perspective, Kroeber does a good job. He cuts through a lot of the media rhetoric with statistics and powerful reasoning to allow for an objective, analytical read. It is also not overloaded with jargon and he often breaks down his arguments with theoretical examples. His coverage on a wide range of topics helped me gain a more robust understanding of China’s economy as a whole, being able to recognize its flaws but also understanding the impressive feats it has achieved and how it differs from classic market economies of the West. Great read.

[Evangelos · Rating 1 out of 5]

Arthur Kroeber’s text is probably the best single-volume book written from a classical liberal perspective on China’s economy. That is sadly not saying much. Kroeber’s book is better than the majority and he avoids some of the most common traps and cliches of Western China commentators (Elizabeth Economy, David Shambaugh, Skylar Mastro, Huang Yasheng, Rush Doshi, and so on). But his inability to reflect on his own biases and to broaden his reading to include criticisms of liberalism mean that the book ends up functioning as little more than Eurocentric neoliberal theology. In what is a fascinating oversight, he doesn’t even mention the word “neoliberal” once in the book and writes as if he didn’t know the term existed! Kroeber is by training a journalist and not a scholar; the failings of his work stem from the fact that this is a journalist trying to reflect on scales he hasn’t been trained to think at. The many four star reviews given to this book aren't reflections of the book itself, but the bibliographic and intellectual limits of its reviewers.

So what are the common traps Kroeber avoids here? First, he doesn’t demonize the Chinese political and economic system tout court. He notes quite judiciously its many successes over the last forty years. He notes too the existence of corruption in the system (and also the perception of this corruption among Chinese citizens), but also acknowledges that this corruption is not incompatible with long term social and economic goals nor with the support of the vast majority of Chinese people of party rule. Here is already light years ahead of roughly 90% of Western China watchers (for paradigmatic examples of this simplified, sensational coverage look at Strittmatter's egregious We Have All Been Harmonized or Joanna Chiu's China Unbound). His claim that China is a police state, but a police state that takes seriously the viewpoints and material well-being of its citizens is nicely framed and empirically irrefutable for anyone who has any actual experience in China or has spent any amount of time working through the research on the country. He spends no time at all—thank God—talking about Marxist ideology or communism as a set of governing values (for how NOT to think about China's politics check out Kevin Rudd's silly new book on Xi Jinping, a sophomoric dissertation he should have left to the gnawing of the rats). He knows that the party over the last forty years has instead been characterized mostly by ideological flexibility and pragmatism as well as a desire to reproduce its own monopoly on power and that it as mostly produced its own legitimacy in the eyes of the population on the basis of fairly effective governance.

Published in 2020 his chapters on China not being a technology leader or being able to innovate are must now feel quite embarrassing. Musk himself has said that the Chinese are making some the best cars in the world. What Huawei has done to get around Americas sanctions will one day be looked on as a world-historically rare feat of strength. He also doesn’t acknowledge the role played by Western political maneuvering in preventing China from becoming the kind of leader it otherwise would be if the West hadn’t decided, mafia-style, to interrupt China's technological development and close Western markets to its EVs and solar panels.

As another reviewer implied, this is a text that remains wholly within what Mark Fisher called a “capitalist realist” consensus—that is, it never for a moment questions that capitalism is the only possible horizon of political life and shows absolutely no awareness of the intrinsic tensions between the logics of capitalist accumulation and the well-being ecologically of the planet. On the question of growth he is an outright fundamentalist. He operates as if the work of Tim Jackson, Jason Hickel, Matt Huber, Andreas Malm, Naomi Klein, Kohei Saito, and many others simply doesn’t exist. Growth is good forever: amen. He’s not even begun to consider the possibility that a planet which grows at 4% forever is simply incompatible with the continuing existence of sustainable life on a finite earth. For many of us now, including many environmental scientists, this position means that his economic perspective is stuck in the dark ages. And so the problem for Kroeber is always framed in terms of how to keep China growing not how to move China or the planet in the direction of a more sustainable economic form. Kroeber writes about these topics like someone who has simply never encountered a critique of his position. He reads like a journalist out of his depths and not a scholar.

Things go badly wrong the more he talks about China and its role in the international system. His coverage of China, despite the (neo) liberal fetish of markets and efficiency that characterizes his work, is mostly sound. But when asked to contextualize the rise of China he makes mistake after mistake. Kroeber claims that recent events in China—including those in Xinjiang and Hong Kong—prove there is a vast “gulf of values” between the Chinese and the West. We’re told that this heightens “legitimate anxieties about China’s ability to function peaceably within the global system”. This is absolute nonsense and borders, to be frank, on political and historical illiteracy. "The West” just spent thirty years killing more muslims than China ever has or ever will when presented with the very same kind of jihadi terrorism. Xinjiang may have involved surveillance, detention and repression, but there is no suggestion not even in the most lurid Western fantasies, of the mass murder enacted by the West in the Middle East. Keep in mind too that he frames the Xinjiang repression as having sparked “broad international outrage”. Fascinating that he makes no mention at all of the timing of this outrage, exploding at exactly the moment America was engaged in a trade war with China (nor does he mention that this "outrage" has been confined almost exclusively to the governments of nations threatened by competition from China's shiny new gadgets and cars). What are the values of the liberal democracies of the West? In theory: freedom, democracy, and human rights. In practice: neo-colonial self-interest, violently enforced neoliberalism, and unchecked environmental ruin (now outsourced to other countries). To find out precisely how this works read Brand's The Imperial Mode of Living. The West has also continually propped up the most heinous of human rights violators on the condition that they accept US domination of the liberal order; its utterly acceptable on these terms to torture, murder, and maim but on the condition that you do so in the name of liberalism itself (rather than the “illiberal” alternative he mechanically derides throughout). The West in practice has since World War 2 stood up consistently for only one value—free markets and their expansion into every aspect of the lives of global populations. The democracy and human rights sides of the equation have been protected only on the condition the latter align with the former. So in some strange way there is actually far more in common with the “values” of the West and those of China! The problem, unseen by Kroeber, is that the West IMAGINES itself as different and that China threatens the intactness of this imaginary. That’s it.

The idea that Xi’s China is “expansionist” in some disturbing new way is also utter nonsense: compared with the undertakings of America and the West in the last forty years—Iraq, Libya, etc.—China looks positively pacifist. It HAS exercised its authority within a tiny band of space around its perimeter and in the context of a Taiwan question that falls fully within its “natural” historical gravity as a rising great power. Its military spending per capita is nowhere near the top of global rankings and its expenditures on the military as a percentage of GDP are middling and have been stable for the last decade. Compared with Britain and the United States, and the atrocities committed by the French (in Algeria) and Germans in the 20th C, China’s expansionism has taken the form of a laughably inoffensive militarization of some land formations in the South China Sea. Kroeber makes the mistake almost all liberal journalists do: he takes what is in the perspective of world history a tiny spark and conflates it with a raging forest fire. Kroeber laments what happened in HK as some kind of unfathomable act of repression—in fact, not one person was killed by the state, even in a context where 1 million people were protesting (often violently) in the streets. In other words, Kroeber simply can’t shake the idea that he and the West he represents are morally superior to the Chinese. This is the oldest form of White saviourism dressed up as common-sense liberal realism. Kroeber falls into these traps because he has to put phrases like “US hegemony” into brackets when he writes them; he falls into this trap—one common to liberal journalists—because he doesn’t believe in the existence of twentieth century imperialism and the continuing existence of neo-colonial domination of the world by the West. The fact that he doesn't believe in its existence doesn't say anything about whether or not it exists. He simply can’t see it. And because he can’t see it his work, sadly, can only function as bad Orwellian propaganda: perspectives on the world that help those who are already asleep stay that way.

As we look forward to the possibilities ahead of ecological collapse, massive economic inequality, the emergence everywhere at the heart of the “liberal democratic” West of neofacism, as well as myriad species-threatening extinction events (from viruses and AI to nuclear war) Kroeber’s invocation of the “richness and robustness of the US led world order” doesn’t just look naive, it looks psychotic.

[Peter Curtiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book goes into a lot of fine detail about how the Chinese economy works, while doing so in such a way that is accessible to the layperson, as well as detailing greater implications and relations of the economic structure.
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There is a lot of detail, so I’d like to just go into two things about what labels are used to talk about China that I found both interesting and insightful.
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First is categorizing their economy. Many people have the misconception that it is a command economy communism. This is just untrue - since ‘79 China has slowly transitioned to a market oriented economy that would be best characterized as a “state capitalism” (contrasted with most liberal democracies’ “market capitalism”).
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China uses market systems, but the state controls considerably more industry (in strategically decided sectors like heavy industry and tech) through SOEs (state owned enterprises). The catch is that these firms still compete, both with each other and private firms, and that competition creates efficiency.
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Second is that, politically, China is best thought of as “Bureaucratic Authoritarian”. They are repressive (eg, heavy state censorship), but unlike most authoritarian govs, power is less centralized under one person (multiple peaceful transitions of power to non-relative, age limits for politicians), and instead in the party itself (though it is moving more dictorial under Xi, who, for example, abolished term limits).