China, Inc.

By: Ted C. Fishman

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

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

How has an enormous country once hobbled by poverty and Communist ideology come to be the supercharged center of global capitalism? What does it mean that China now grows three times faster than the United States? That China uses 40 percent of the world's concrete and 25 percent of its steel? What is the global impact of 300 million rural Chinese walking off their farms and heading to the cities in the greatest migration in human history? Why do nearly all of the world's biggest companies now have large-scale operations in China? What does the corporate march into China mean for workers left behind in America, Europe, and the rest of the world?

Meanwhile, what makes China's emerging corporations so dangerously competitive? What could happen when China will be able to manufacture nearly everything, computers, cars, jumbo jets, and pharmaceuticals, that the United States and Europe can, at perhaps half the cost? How do these developments reach around the world and straight into the lives of all Americans?

©2005 Ted Fishman (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Fishman has scrupulously examined the impact of China's phenomenal growth in this important book." (Booklist)
"A lively, fact-packed account of China's spectacular, 30-year transformation from economic shambles following Mao's Cultural Revolution to burgeoning market superpower." (Publishers Weekly)

Interesting but very light

The book is ok. A little superficial and the reader does get boring after a while. Don't expect anything too insightful, though. Just basic general trends behind China's emergence as "America's factory". On the downside, the author is awed by all sorts of banal trends and doesn't make the effort (or doesn't have the intellectual capability) to do significant research and present much more meaningful explanations and conclusions. Light reading for the non-business / non-economist.

Answers to "Made in China"

If you've ever wondered why everything seems to be made in China, and what the future may hold for this emerging superpower, then this is your book. History and current trends that are really interesting and give an incredible glimpse into the country and how it affects us in the west.

Interesting, and often astonishing

Many interesting and often surprising details on recent developments in China; including the reasons why ending software piracy in China (even if it were remotely possible to do so) would be a disaster for Microsoft.

Exaggerated Claims

The author seems to be biased on China which is evident from the exaggerated claims on China's importance. Sure China will one day become the largest economy in the world, but, the role of India in that changed world seemed to have been belittled. China's economic liberalization started 35 years (early 1970s)ago and India's started 15 years (early 1990s)ago - hence China has a 20 year lead over India.
In the long run, the Indian model is going to be more sustainable as it is democratic based vs. autocratic Chinese approach

A good primer on the Chinese economy and the world

Although the material is a bit dated, it describes the Chinese economy and it's impact on the entire world. When the government forces even the biggest corporations to give up trade secrets, as it does to every company wanting to do business in China, it gives itself the power to produce those products on an unimaginable scale that even the originating company cannot compete with. Add to that the meaninglessness of copyright laws, and a population that is mobilized for production, it's inevitable that China will be the next #1 superpower in the world.

Good, but needs updating

What did you love best about China, Inc.?

This title provides a good overview of the many different facets of China. From government policies to business practices to global economics. The main problem (really the only one that bothered me) was the constant reminders that the book's content was dated. A lot has happened in the world, with regard to China as well as other characters from the book. An updated version would eliminate any complaints I have.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

A really long and slightly dated comprehensive study of business and economics in China.(it's not glamorous, but it is thorough)

Critical info for 2020 and beyond.

Americans need to read this book and wake up from our slumber. We aren’t competing against a world that is feverishly competing against us!

Vauge, unsupported and lame

I have listened to 52 audio programs on Audible. This is hands down the WORST of them. If you want information about China, this book cannot help you – it is nearly devoid of fact. Instead you hear incredible lame hypothetical statements about how “China is everywhere” citing stories of made up people and what you “might see if you were to visit”.

I’ve listened to 60 hours of audio on Truman with a smile on my face, yet I couldn’t stomach the second chapter of this book and had to stop without going further. Do yourself a favor and pass.

Don't listen if you are in China

I don't presume to be an China expert by a long shot, but listening to this book on headphones while walking the streets of Shanghai (was there 4 years) it was really hard to stomach the book could possibly be talking about the same country as I was in. One example is the explanation that because labor is so cheap, a larger % of building costs goes to materials as was the case in the US 100 years back and thus everything being built is of such quality as the US had been. Has the author ever been to China at all and seen the amazing buildings everywhere which age 35 years and fall apart just 3 years after construction? Beyond absurd.

Just read the Amazon reviews befor buying it ...

... I'm sorry I didn't. This book is seems to be written by someone on the China's Ministery of Propagada, if such things would exisit. It is full of empty and repeating trivia that I spen most of the time ffwding my player.