China Shakes the World: A Titan's Rise and Troubled Future -- and the Challenge for America

Being an AsianAm married to a Chinese immigrant, it's hard to describe to Westerns how different the culture in China is. But without understanding China, it will hobble us, both individually and as a country, when we try to make them fit into our Western-centric viewpoint.Kynge's got impeccable credentials as a Sinologist and is one of the few who truly seems to understand how China's history both invigorates and hobbles them in the 21st century. Despite this book being six years old, it remains relevant and fair in its viewpoint.China is its own worst enemy, and with it so prominent on the global scene - financially, politically, militarily - Kynge's book goes a long way towards making this giant, unwieldy, complex country more understandable to Westerns. In view of the 12/14/2011 NYTimes story on the Wukan village uprising against local authority corruption, "China Shakes the World" proves itself to still be an essential read even now.This book should be required reading for ALL Washington politicians...well, assuming they can actually read, which sometimes we all must doubt.

I bought this book from Amazon months ago, meaning to read it but I had my mother and others read it first.I read the bood recently, nearly two years after Wall Street had collapsed as we all knew it and China had become the largest creditor nation to the USA.While some of the peripheral facts and events this book discussed seem dated, the book as a whole may never become dated and its sould is eternal.It's amazing how the book captured the heart and souls of the Chinese people and of China. It's clear the book was thoroughly researched and the writing and editing is nothing short of excellent. Thank you to the author and his editors for the conciseness and brevity of the book. Very easy to read and get hooked. Well done.It should be required reading for anyone who wants to visit China or to do business in China or with companies based in China. I only wish this book was available when I was in college; it's such an easy book to read and appreciate.

I am Chinese, and of course I am attracted by the title. Finally, China get to shake the world a little too, what an accomplishment. Well, as I read the book, it is making me less and less proud of my motherland. The counterfeit product, the stealing of high-tech information, degradation of environment and the insitutionalized corruption are making my stomach turn. When 1/2 of the population is going at 80 miles an hour in the globalized world, the other half is being left behind by their own country. It makes me wonder, what will happen if the economy slow down in China? What will the people who had already tasted the fast world will do, and what will the ultra-dictatorship of the Ruling Communist party do, and what will the other half of the population that had been left behind do. This is a question worth pondering. Maybe, China is not as rosy as it projected to the rest of the world, and maybe people, or investors should listen to not just the official talking head, but what the people are doing. This is a good read, it will help with my school project too.

James Kynge, Financial Times bureau chief in Beijing, discusses not only the challenges faced by America in this excellent new book, but those faced by China itself. One of these challenges is the enormous demographic and economic growth that China has experienced in the last 20 years. Today there are 40 cities with populations of over a million and another 53 with populations between 500,000 and a million. The city of Chongking is growing by about 300,000 a year. In 2005, 400 million people were urban and by 2050 another 600 to 700 million will be urbanized. The accompanying challenge is sustaining the 10% annual economic rate to support this population surge.China has probably broken every record in the history of economic development and Kynge goes over many of the statistics that other China-watchers have already enumerated. What is unique about this book is that it gives equal time to the dark underside of this story. Front and center is the problem of pollution and environmental degradation. Of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, 16 can be found in China. A majority of the largest cities - 400 of the 668 largest - are experiencing water shortages. By 2050, two-thirds of China's ice field will have melted due to global warming. China is already the second largest producer of greenhouse gases after the US. The challenge will be growing without doing irreparable damage to the environment.China a major and growing importer of natural resources and driving up global commodity prices. With their growing appetite for raw materials such as lumber, many of the world's rainforests in Indonesia, Myanmar, Central Africa, and Brazil are being logged - illegaly - to be sold in China. An area of rainforest about the size of Belgium disappears every year. Kynge's anecdote about missing manhole covers in surrounding countries illustrates the demand for steel. And no one should be surprised that the recent increase in global oil prices is a result of Chinese demand.Kynge points out that as a developing country, not quite yet a superpower, and as a not fully capitalistic country, since the government still controls many of the levers of the economy; China has been able to evade superpower responsibility. In the case of Iran, China has been very reticent about halting nuclear development, only a reluctant supporter of sanctions for fear of disrupting their oil supply. Likewise, in the case of Sudan, China has looked the other way while ethnic cleansing is being conducted in Darfur. Worse yet, China is powerful enough as a manufacturer and lender to prevent anyone else from intervening as well, the US included.China's growing size and influence will be one of the greatest challenges faced by the US and the rest of the world in the new century. In what Kynge calls the "compression of developmental time," Chinese workers are using the latest high-tech manufacturing technology and the most modern infrastructure, yet the average industial wage is only about $.50 an hour. Neither the West nor other countries can compete with this combination. How long this can be sustained is an open question. Kynge points out that they have an unbeatable advantage at the moment but that it cannot last.China's rise has inspired fear at least since the time of Napoleon who originally uttered the phrase about China shaking the world. Kynge tells us that most of the Chinese he knows wish nothing more than to make a better life for themselves and do not see China as a superpower, let alone a threat to the world order. I agree, the Chinese are more aware of thei shortcomings and also more aware that superpower status is still elusive. Kynge is good at articulating the obstacles that the Chinese still face as they modernize their economy. In Napoleon's time China represented about one-third of the world's economy as opposed to 5% today. If they are going to achieve their former market share they still have a whole lot of shakin' to do.