“China Shakes the World” by James Kynge Essay (Book Review)

An the introduction to the book, the author traces back at some of the events in the past about the rise of some of the developed nations. Here he describes the rise and fall of these touted rich nations. He talks about the twists and turns, false and deceptive signals of the history of rich nations and their eventual symbolism. Here compares what was thought of China in the late twentieth century, as a nation of ancient civilizations to the early twenty first century where it is termed as economic giant. He talks about Beijing’s accession to WTO in 2001 to handover of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty, describing the Chinese emergence. Here he links symbolically the disappearance of iron manholes in another region of the world to Chinese need for raw material and scrap. He also talks of world isolation in the 1990’s to changing economic scenario, with its rivalry with United States in many spares including human rights to economics. He also writes of the uncomfortable position of US over outsourcing, China’s unfair trading practices, and pirated consumer goods to intellectual property rites. He also highlights the changing economics to desertification of fertile lands, air pollution relate to respiratory lungs disorder and changing environmental base. In this book, he draws a whole line of issues for foreign trade to foreign relations to the environment.

This book ‘China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future and the Challenge for America’ is written by James Kynge and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2007. James Kynge is a celebrated journalist and has been a recipient of several journalism awards. He was the China Bureau Chief for the Financial Times for seven years. He has written many books, namely with titles ‘China Shakes The World-A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future – and the Challenge for America’, ‘China Shakes The World-The Rise of a Hungry Nation’ etc. In October 2006, James Kynge won the Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award for this book. In this book, he describes the fast development of China as a world power.

James Kynge has unshakable influence of China in most of his books. He has an illustrious career in journalism in Asia spanning nearly two decades. He originally served for Reuters and then as China Bureau Chief for the Financial Times between 1998 and 2005. In this course, James Kynge has covered many of the events during this time, which includes the Japanese deflation, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the rise to nationhood of the five former Soviet Central Asian republics in the early 1990s, the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and China’s emergence as a great economic power since 1998.

In the first section of his book, ‘Rags to Riches’, author takes a showcase of Thyssen Krupp steel mill in Dortmund. Here he says that raising taxes after German reunification along workers demands of 35 hrs week to efficient South Korean Steel mills prompted the company to shift to China near the mouth of Yangtze River. This leads to job loss and change in perception towards China. Here Chinese were only viewed as dishwashers, now has risen to employers whose appointment needed to be taken before a meeting. Along with this, he looks at the 14% Chinese growth in 1995, rising stock markets with foundation of Shanghai and in Shenzhen stock markets. The author talks about large-scale transformation of China 1993 onwards, through time, space, technology, culture, ideology etc.

In the next part ‘The Future Is the Past (Except When It Isn’t)’ the author takes the readers to a few of the past incidents that shaped Chine. He talks about Chungking China’s wartime capital above Yangtze River, where hundred and thousand of Chinese people gathered in unison to fight against the Japanese. He gives glimpses of the past and reflections of war in 1945. He also narrates the creation of Taiwan and the manner how after the war the town was reduced to rubbles.

The next part ‘The Population Paradox: Innovation, Piracy, and the Grail of Market Share’, shows an example of how Jianshe Industrial, an old armaments firm went about looking for spare parts and reverse engineered to rebuild a Yamaha engine, and subsequently went about to create three new engines of their own model and technology in three years flat. This innovation of some of the firms made some of the Japanese company worrisome, but could do little as the Chinese government put restrictions on them. The author talks of the angle were the foreign companies felt helpless as the government restrictions would not just let these companies operate freely on the Chinese soil. They had to go for joint ventures and eventual transfer of technologies.

Apart from problems associated with setting up of factories, the author highlights another issue of little regard for intellectual property rights, where he takes up an example of Yamaha while launching its model Jinbao, was in horror to find that thirty-six factories was already making these bikes and selling at one-third price of around 6000 RMB. These factories leaked out designs to other factories of Chinese origin, and in the absence of proper intellectual property acts, companies were losing millions. Here author also talks about piracy, of how Hollywood movies were released in DVD’s before the actual launch of the blockbuster. Fake books with fake writers, fake golf clubs, fake electrical goods and jinxed joined ventures are a few of the stories he outlined here. He also writes how volume sales were shaping the economy, changing the perception of China where manufacturers were keeping as little as 2 to 3 percent profit for volume sales, with volume exports meant eventually the Americans and Europeans were beginning to live on the Chinese products.

In the next part, the author takes up the issue of the large immigrant population in the west and their impact on the economy. He takes up an example of Prato in Italy, with a local population of 180,000 and an estimated 20,000 of the Chinese. He also mentions of prospect of people coming from China immigrating to Europe, who are semi skilled to no skills. He also talks about the after-effects of it in the economy of the country.

In the next section of ‘America Bought and Sold’ the author James Kynge, describes the aftereffect of the growing Chinese economy and rapid industrialization. He takes an example of Rockford, Illinois, US, which was once a bustling town with activities, now nearly deserted. Most of the companies have closed or moved towards China. In addition, the employees and the workers left the city due to scarcity of the work. He also adds the Wal-Mart has now opened a vast discount store there, with most of the products acquired from Chinese suppliers. Here he describes how the first the jobs are lost to China and returned in form of cheap manufactured goods. Author describes the entire thing as a Chinese puzzle.

Here in the next section, the Author describes the after effect of rapid industrialization, the lack of local resources of China. Rapid industrialization meant large natural resources, which are not available with China, so to have to find resources through other nations. These resources included almost everything on the earth from freshwater to oil to wood, everything. Author, analyzes the flipside to burgeoning economy, rising industrial prices. Increase on Global oil prices, and its need made prediction for need for oil go bad. The Chinese need for timber for its growing industry prompted illegal and circumvented methods adopted by dubious companies to illegally fell tree with 2003 recording 157 fires around the world. In addition, the World Tropical Timber Association acknowledging five out of ten logs going to China. In addition, the author notes the damage to the environment as well.

The author also tries to capture the changes in ethos of the Chinese society. Here he explores at the teachings of Mengzi about the goodness of the person, taking others suffering as his own. Here author beautifully explains Mengzi’s example of Bull Mountain and its repeated destruction even after self-growth to lack of substance of human nature. He also tells about the underlying mistrust in modern Chinese society, people’s migration to cities, and changing values. In a country where uniform is of utmost respect, there are incidents of people in fake uniforms. In addition, there were about 10,000 fake police officers caught in the process. He also mentions the practice by journalists ‘you Chang Xin wen’ (“news with bonus”), i.e. news to be published if money is paid. He also highlights other social aspects like extramarital affairs, paternity tests, prenuptial agreements, and surging divorce rates.

The author tries to find the reasons for distrust, environmental malaise, rampant piracy, official corruption, and problems arising out of rapid industrialization. He attributes it to the intricacies arising out of differences between communalism and capitalism. This mismatch of political and economic policies is creating problems for not only China but also other states engaged with it. The author sites that protectionist measures like subsidy over water, electricity, oil and other state subsidies along with restricted capital flows has aggravated the further complicated situation. Also includes discussion about laws that brought change like that in the case of Cao Pochan, better known as “Mr. Bankruptcy”.

In the last chapter of his book, he explores the possibility of establishing with Chinese and the manner to go about it. He tries to relate old Beijing to the new Beijing and finding common grounds to nurture friendship. He also stokes the clear line between popular adulation and exclusivity, and the clear difference between the line of power and the common mass. The author also brings the basic thought that China was founded after hundred years of foreign aggression and little attempt made by the Chinese government to foster change in relationships. Here he takes an example of people shouting slogans outside Japanese Embassies and support to Sudanese Government, which could have led to massacre.

This book talks literally about rag to riches story, to its future in its relation to past, the huge population to potentially increasing world market share, Chinese immigrants, its effect on the world, depletion of its natural resources, the social aspect, political and economic policies and its relation of trust with the outside world. The author critically analyzes all the aspects in detail, taking examples from his personal experiences.