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China Fever: Fascination, Fear, and the World's Next Superpower
For the first time to the
general readers, this book employs a cultural-institutional
approach to analyze China’s business, economic, and political dynamics:
1. It is the first book that uncovers the
“Big 10 American Businesses in China” by capturing nearly 100 U.S.
companies’ China actions;
2.
It is the first book that using Institutional Economics to explore the
boiling issues of trade deficit, Chinese currency revaluation, and
American trade politics;
3.
It is the first book that reveals how the Chinese “Cult of Face” shapes
China’s modernization ambition, overseas business expansion,
catching-up psychology, and taking-off mentality;
4.
It is the first book that unveils how the Chinese “Magic Chain” of
“fame-favor-faith-fate-force” defines the aggressiveness and cohesion
of its family business, the revival of its state-owned enterprises, and
the government’s go-getting role in the new wave of globalization;
5. It is the first book by an insider to
portrait how the Chinese economy pulls global resources into its orbit
and doubles up its GDP 3 times in a row, and why there is no end
in sight to their economic boom;
6.
It is the first book that theoritizes an “Effort-Based Institutional
Analysis” to explain China’s economic miracle, and a “Transaction Cost
Theory of Selective Infringement” to help explain China’s “Top 10
problems;”
7.
It is the first book that brings to light the internals of China’s
autocratic “Family-rulership” and its transformation to meritocratic
“Party-rulership,” and persuasively explains China’s “Dynastic Cycle”
and why the current authoritarian regime is not collapsing with the
“Effort-Based Institutional Analysis,” the “Transaction Cost Theory of
Political Entrepreneurship,” and the leadership succession mechanism;
8.
It is the first book that systematically details the 12 arguments for
“Why China won’t adopt Western democracy” both positively and
normatively;
9.
It is the first book that the Institutional Economic Approach is aided
by Cultural Psychology to depict our cognitive mental process and
explains why we think so differently, why cross-cultural dialogue is so
difficult, why putting aside “ideological promotion” can benefit
American business so much, and why holding on to “Democratic
Fundamentalism” can only result in self-trapping in the Iraq quagmire;
10.
It is the first book to alarm a siren that the “China Challenge” is
neither a business one, nor an economic one, nor a military one, but
an Institutional one on a “State Model” level that the American
Capitalism will be confronting throughout the 21st century that is defined as the “American-Chinese Century.”
In short, this book is the first attempt by an institutionalist
to be totally un-evasive on China's
political-economic institutions, it is at the same time a challenge for
all institutionalists to address China's institutional
structure both positively and normatively.
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(Available at Amazon.com)
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Ten
Architecture Wonders of New China:
1.Diaphanous
Theaters
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About the author:
Frank Fang currently serves as Director of Institutional Economics Center
(www.ieCenter.org), a Chicago-based independent research organization.
His devotion to Institutional Economics started from his graduate studies
in Economics at Peking University in 1986 when China’s economic reform was
rolling out in broad scale. In 1991, he won the “Young Scholar
Achievement Award” at the Institute
of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In
1993, he became Deputy Director of Beijing-based Unirule Institute of
Economics. He came to the U.S.
to study political science and management information system after 1994
and later founded Institutional
Economics Center.
He specializes in New Institutional Economics, Game Theory, and their
applications in China
and U.S.
economies. Frank Fang’s unique experience gives him an immediate
understanding of China’s
situation and America’s
concerns on the China
rise. As his first book published in America, China Fever bares all the fruits of his years of research
work. To contact Frank Fang, please email FrankFang@ieCenter.org.
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2.Beijing International Airport
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Book Description:
China Fever uncovers how the
enchanting Chinese economy pulls countless U.S. multinationals into its
orbit, and how the rejuvenated Chinese capitalists spearhead into the
global business arena; by looking further into the way the ambitious
Chinese handle their entrenched social problems and why there is no end
in sight to their economic boom, China
Fever unveils how the age-old Chinese culture remodels its business,
economic, and political systems that are now rivaling the American
capitalism. Compared with other China
books, China Fever not only refreshes with the most up-to-date development, but
also looks broader into U.S.
business in China
(featuring dozens of big U.S.
companies), the “China Effect” in America,
and China’s
outward expansion in the world. In addition, China Fever delves
deeper into China’s
cultural, historical, and political internals so as to add
analytical strength to the story-packed details. The goal of this book is to answer the following questions
without any ambiguity: Why is China still so hot? Is China
really a threat? Does China
steal ours jobs with its huge cheap labor pool? What really drives China’s
economic miracle? Can China
sustain its booming economy? Will China
overtake the U.S.
in the next 30 years? Does China have to embrace Western
Democracy to maintain its political stability? Intended for the
general readers, China Fever tackles the “China Puzzle” behind
these questions, addresses the business, economic, and military
challenges that it poses to the U.S., and goes on to contend that the
real challenge for America is far beyond what have been well taken by
common sense. China Fever
sorts through mountains of available raw data, confusing facts, and
conflicting events with coherence, shape, and logic, presenting a clear picture of the real China
challenge from a much more fundamental perspective.
Alternate Description:
As China
is sweeping all at once through the various stages in the historical
growth model, the country is putting on the greatest modernization show
in all human history to the world. The Middle Kingdom is pulling
countless foreign economies into its globalization orbit and forcing
numerous U.S.
companies scrambling for China
action. At the same time, the rejuvenated Chinese capitalists are
spearheading into the global business arena and making a splash at every
corner of the earth. For the first time to the general readers, this book
employs a cultural-institutional approach to capture China's business, economic, and political
dynamics and its relevance to the United States. Chine Fever
wades through the most up-to-date events in China,
delves into fascinating stories with massive amount of data, and opens up
the cultural aspect of the Chinese psychology, the historical facet of
Chinese political tradition, and the cognitive basis of its ideological
conflicts with America.
By looking further into how the ambitious Chinese handle their entrenched
social problems and why there is no end in sight to their economic boom,
China Fever unveils the ways the age-old Chinese culture remodels its
business, economic, and political systems that are now rivaling the
American capitalism. As it refutes the conventional ideas of
"economic liberalization leading to democratization" and
"pluralism leading to authoritarian collapse," this book argues
for why China won't
adopt Western democracy and why the China
challenge to America
is on a much more fundamental "state model" level.
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3.
Shanghai
World Financial Center
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Summary for
Chapter 1: America’s
“China Fever”
As several large-scale historic transitions forming a “perfect storm” in China, what are the U.S. companies doing and how are they
doing in China?
This chapter details the “Big 10
American Businesses with China”
when U.S. companies
are scrambling for China
action at the beginning of the new century. The China fever in the U.S. also spreads into the
learning of the Chinese language, the “Yao Min effect,” globalization
shock, trade politics, IPR debates, and the “war talks.” While there are
economic logic, collective action logic and game theoretic logic behind
the scene, the reality is that China
imports jobs and exports deflation and China presents opportunities
and poses challenges. Yet the China challenge, as the
chapter asserts, is neither a business one, nor an economic one, nor a
military one. It is something much more fundamental that will be unveiled
in the following chapters.
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4.
National Swimming
Center, Beijing
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Summary for Chapter 2: Chinese “Cult
of Face”: Economic Miracle and Empire Psychology
The “EMC email gate” story leads directly to the hidden side of the
cultural internals of China’s
national psychology. This chapter proposes a “Cult of Face” theory to
explore Chinese shame-based and fear-based culture which is characterized
by the unique combinations of “fame-favor-faith-fate-force”—Chinese
“Magic Chain.” The “Century of Humiliation” in Chinese modern history,
the modernization drive, and the Chinese economic miracle are then put
into a new perspective that allows going beyond the simple assertion of
“Culture matters” to a better grasp of “How culture actually matters.”
While the scale of China’s
economic miracle is revealed in “doubling up GDP every eight years three
times in a row,” the emergence of the “First World of China” and the new
“Bizocrats,” the potential of the China market is further
examined by industry trends, geographic diversities, and demographic
dynamics. As for the question of whether the “sleeping giant” is going to
overtake American economy, it depends not only on if China can keep on rising, but also on if
the U.S.
will be sinking.
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5.
Central Chinese Television CCTV, Beijing
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Summary of Chapter 3: Authoritarian
Laissez-faire: Stories of Super-Growth
How does Chinese “Cult of Face” fit into the explanation of its stunning
economic growth? Pragmatism for wealth creation schemes over ideological
orthodox, the new generation of Chinese leaders reckon, can eventually
save more face and fulfill more dreams. America’s early experience in
the Thanksgiving story strikes a chord with the 18 Chinese farmers who
started the Chinese “rural revolution” in 1978 when the reform was
initiated. It is all about a production mechanism that promotes
incentives. This is the unmistakable doctrine for people in Wenzhou, the
forefront of capitalism in China, when they pioneered a network of
private enterprises which constantly challenges the “old dogma” both in
scale and scope—from the bickering of quantifying “labor exploitation” to
the squabbling of private banking. The advantage of proximity to Hong Kong brings about an equally dazzling story by
the people in the Pearl River Delta. Here is the gigantic engine that
produces the majority of the signs of “Made in China.” The Delta farmers
enjoy a better deal: they rent out farmlands and collect money from those
Hong Kong and Taiwan
investors who swarm into mainland to make full use of its massive labor
pool. Yet the government is not throwing away its state-run shops that
are now emerging from the “corporatization” scheme. In fact, the Chinese
government not only planned the reform and executed the marketization,
but also controlled the industry transformation and guided the outward
trading expansion. In Chinese ideology, market is an instrument, not a
liberal ideal from which perfection is achieved by maximum competition.
Chinese business practices and economic success are in fact attributed to
its “faith system” (“trust mechanism” and “credit culture”) that cannot
be assumed away in its marketization.
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6.
Linked Hybrid, Beijing
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Summary of Chapter 4: “Blame the
Cow”: Explaining Boom and Bust
The “blame the cow” story points to a paradoxical assertion that
“Colombian handbag makers cannot compete for the attractive U.S.
market because their cows are dumb.” The relevance of the story is the
inadequacy of all “newspaper explanations” of China’s economic growth
during the last 3 decades. Basing on events and stories in Chinese recent
history, growth not only relies on how productive efforts are systematically
encouraged, but also depends on how distributional efforts and
destructive efforts are institutionally induced. The proposed
“Effort-based institutional analysis” pushes textbook growth explanation
from “organizational efficiency” and “allocative efficiency,” to
“adaptive efficiency” and further to the so-called “inducive efficiency.”
Boom and bust are about incentives, property rights and free market
allocation, as well as about institutional adaptation and directions of
institutional endeavor. It is by this theoretical context that China’s
top 10 problems, including a number of cases of corruption and pollution,
are put under close scrutiny. The conclusion, surprising to some, is that
China
is not in a state of a meltdown. But we are only one step closer to the
“grand puzzle” of booming economy under a “corrupt” government.
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7.
Dongtan Eco-City
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Summary of Chapter 5: Two Tigers
Can’t Share the Same Hill: Decoding Political Culture
The chapter-leading story here is what came to be known as the
“experiment of the century”: a computer tournament of the “prisoner’s
dilemma” game. Who would have thought the fallouts of a simple “Tit for
Tat” strategy can go so far beyond a software contest that implies so
much about human cooperation? Here we see the power of the game theory’s
heuristic value in helping decipher Chinese political culture, contrasted
by its “in-the-book aspect” and “in-reality aspect” but characterized by
“live and let die.” Three dimensions of Chinese political culture are of
particular significance to the issues of China’s
continuing prosperity and China’s
political future: first is the inter-dynastic fight for domination;
second is the intra-dynastic struggle for power; and third is the
“inheritance-succession” system and the logic of the “dynastic cycle.”
Without indulging too much into the all too enthralling stories in
Chinese history, “Family Rulership,” legitimated by “Heavenly
Mandate” but sustained only by power
and merit, was put in the center of the “dynastic game” surrounded by peasants, bureaucrats, soldiers, bandits, and invaders.
The tragedy of Chinese “Dynastic Cycle” and the foreign invasion prompted
its modern effort for democracy. History proves again that physical
ballot boxes are simple to deploy, organizations are easy to change, and
rules are straightforward to set up, yet instinctive habits readily fail
enforcement. “Spontaneous compliance” of “uncertain interplay” didn’t
seem to be the only game in town for China, losing under democracy
was never more attractive than a future under non-democratic
alternatives. From such reasoning of democratization, the chapter leads
to the largely unrecognized “revolutionary nature” of China’s
meritocratic “Party-rulership” (compared with the troubled
“Family-rulership”) and conclusively shoves attention to the “Twelve
Arguments” for “Why China’s won’t adopt Western democracy.”
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8.
Olympic Stadium, Beijing
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Summary of Chapter 6: Ideological
Clash: China vs. America
Are the Chinese really unique, or are they just distinctively different?
As the “Twelve Arguments” unfold, the study of “cultural psychology” and
“cognitive science” are put into spotlight. The chapter-leading story
here is a multiple one: real life events and lab test stories by Richard
Nisbett from his 2003 book The
Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and
Why. In his opinion, reasoning is not separate from what is reasoned
about. Differences in people’s attitudes, beliefs, worldviews, values,
and preferences are result of differences in cognitive processes or tools
used to understand the world, not result of teaching of different things
or exposing to different aspects of the world.
The debate of human rights between China and American can never
be clearly understood without referring to their cognitive differences.
In the light of this perspective, the chapter delves into the American
history for the “public choice” nature of its “republicanism-centric”
democracy. It is here that the “Twelve Arguments” move from “positive”
(what it is) to more “normative” territory (what it should be) and
“subjective morality” for democracy is then revealed. The idea is a
simple one: holding democracy--the “periodic popular elections for key
government offices with multi-party rotating contestation and equal
voting rights”--as a universal fundamental not only leads to American
ideological and military over-reach, but also institutionalizes American
distributional and destructive efforts toward a “let loss run” scheme
that jeopardizes America’s
productive supremacy.
This brings us back to all the business and economic stories of this book
should boil down to: the real “China challenge.” It may not
be an alarm, but the real China challenge is: contrary to the Western
belief that only liberal institutions will sustain great power, China’s
meritocratic institutions have evolved into a stable modern stage that is
now served as a different “state model” that can sustain rapid economic
growth with reasonable political stability; the challenge of this reality
is not how to contain it with military muscle or engage it with one-sided
faith, the challenge of this reality lies in how to leverage this
first-and-the-largest-of-its-kind superpower in international politics
and benefit from it through economic globalization; with its double digit
economic growth that can soon overtake Germany and Japan in GDP, China
may still not be able to effectively challenge the economic supremacy of
the U.S. in 30 years; nevertheless, “A hegemon may have his own
self-destructive element,” the United States can lose its own economic
dominance by its own fault if it continues to overstretch its military,
economic and ideological power in the decades to come.
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9. Donghai Bridge,
Shanghai/Yangshan Island
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10. National Grand
Theater, Beijing
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