China, Inc.

China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World,
by Ted C. Fishman

This book is difficult for me to rate. The writing style is somehow both densely packed and needlessly fluffy. Fishman works very hard at dropping long strings of metaphores into each sentence, making it difficult–and somewhat annoying–to follow. The content is simultaneously profoundly interesting, confusingly disconnected, and maddeningly biased. There is no question on which side of the China debate Mr. Fishman stands. The book clearly bashes America’s increasing co-dependency with China as a catastrophe, or at least a catastrophe wating to happen. I am not so pessimistic.

While the book was not a pleasure to read, I still recommend doing so. The sheer scale of American industrial relations with China is mind-blowing, and China Inc. does an excellent job of painting that picture. The facts and figures alone are worth browsing, and the analysis, while decidedly one-sided, is still a very valid interpretation. Not many people grasp the enormity of our trade-relations with China, nor its irreversable impact on the global economy. In order to debate ways of dealing with the white elephant in the living room, we must first recognize the elephant. To this end, China Inc. aught to be of help.