The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century

by WillHutton (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $3.25

  The prevailing view of China is of an economic juggernaut set to make the 21st century its own. This provocative and stimulating book warns instead that China is running up against a set of daunting challenges from within that could well derail its rise and, in turn, deliver a crippling shock to the global economy. Britain, Europe and the US must recognise that they have a vital stake in assuring that collapse does not happen. China's effect on our lives is reflected in our house prices, the inequality in our wages and the prices we pay in our shops. Yet China is burdened by a weak enterprise system, growing social protest and environmental degradation. Hutton shows how the contradictions of an authoritarian state are fundamentally disabling and argues that if China is to complete the transition to capitalism upon which it has embarked, it has no choice but to embrace the mechanisms that make business and government accountable to people - from a free press to representative governance. This is a powerful warning that global peace and prosperity depend upon successful transition.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.25

  China constitutes a fifth of the world's population. Over the last twenty years its economy has doubled to make it the fifth largest economy in the world; if the pace is repeated over the next twenty it is set to become second only to the US. The speed of its development is stunning, a combination of cheap labour and commitment to science and technology that has never been matched by a developing country. The Pearl River Delta, Shanghai and Beijing have become city-regions whose growth and embrace of modernity strike the visitor with awesome force. This is a continent on the move, recovering the world position and wealth it once had. The re-emergence of China as a superpower constitutes the biggest challenge the world has had for more than a century. Never before in modern times has the financial, trade, economic and diplomatic world pecking order been so profoundly reconstituted with the challenger country itself in the grips of incredible ideological and political change. This is a transition both internally in China and externally in the world beyond beset by hazard and risk. The world's peace and prosperity depends upon it being executed successfully.

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $14.96

  China constitutes a fifth of the world's population. Over the last twenty years its economy has doubled to make it the fifth largest economy in the world; if the pace is repeated over the next twenty it is set to become second only to the US. The speed of its development is stunning, a combination of cheap labour and commitment to science and technology that has never been matched by a developing country. The Pearl River Delta, Shanghai and Beijing have become city-regions whose growth and embrace of modernity strike the visitor with awesome force. This is a continent on the move, recovering the world position and wealth it once had. The re-emergence of China as a superpower constitutes the biggest challenge the world has had for more than a century. Never before in modern times has the financial, trade, economic and diplomatic world pecking order been so profoundly reconstituted with the challenger country itself in the grips of incredible ideological and political change. This is a transition both internally in China and externally in the world beyond beset by hazard and risk. The world's peace and prosperity depends upon it being executed successfully.