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The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World (Contemporary Asia in the World) Hardcover – October 20, 2015

by Ho-fung Hung (Author)
4 out of 5 stars 5 customer reviews
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Editorial Reviews

Review

[An] informative study.... [The China Boom] paints a convincing picture that China may not be the superpower many predicted it to be.

(Publishers Weekly)

This valuable treatise will appeal to both scholars and more casual readers with an interest in China.

(Library Journal)

Masterful.

(Foreign Affairs)

It is a fast-paced, highly readable, thoroughly provocative, and (rare for an academic book) truly enjoyable account of 400 years of Chinese economic history right up to the present day.

(Asian Review of Books)

Review

A very readable and informative book that will find a wide readership. Its great strength is that it shows on many different fronts that the notion of China's rising dominance may be unrealistic or, at least, premature.

(Victor Shih, University of California, San Diego)

Timely and important, Ho-fung Hung's accessible and clear-eyed assessment of China's prospects, rooted in both the longer patterns of China's own history and global economics, reaches unexpected and reassuring conclusions. A stimulating intellectual journey led by a calm and judicious guide.

(Robert A. Kapp, former president of the U.S.-China Business Council)

Ho-Fung Hung's important and stimulating work places China's recent economic reforms and development trajectory firmly within their proper historical context, thereby releasing them from triumphalist or defeatist narratives that begin in 1949 or 1978. The China of the past four decades, Hung shows us, is the same China that has wrestled with modernization since the early Qing Dynasty and has faced the same problems many times before.

(Michael Pettis, Peking University)

Ho-fung Hung's brilliant analysis of the intertwining of China's national trajectory with the evolution of global capitalism adds new energy and insights to one of the most fundamental debates in contemporary political economy.

(Peter Evans, University of California, Berkeley)
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Product Details

  • Series: Contemporary Asia in the World
  • Hardcover: 264 pages
  • Publisher: Columbia University Press (October 20, 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0231164181
  • ISBN-13: 978-0231164184
  • Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 6.2 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,969 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsChina, By Someone That Actually Knows What He Is Talking About
By Andy in Washington TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on November 3, 2015
Format: Hardcover
For those of us who remember the American business world of the 1980’s and 90’s, we lived in fear that the Japanese system was going to take over the world’s business. The Japanese made all the steel, built all the cars, were buying up American property, and generally seemed to have the whole “management thing” figured out. The popular business press consisted of doomsday projections for American business, and articles on how to mimic the Japanese success. Anyone who forecast an end to Japanese dominance was out-of-touch or a dreamer.

Then a funny thing happened. The Japanese system had, buried within it, systemic problems. Stodgy companies, poor demographics and over-investment led to a period of contraction and deflation, making the Japanese economy a problem child in the 90’s and 2000’s.

Ho-fung Hung provides a very similar analysis for modern-day China. While the popular press praises the “China Model” of low labor costs, high investment and state-managed capitalism, Hung explores the problems inherent in that model.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* Hung knows what he is talking about. He is not afraid to cross disciplines, and makes his arguments using politics, economics, social sciences, history, military analysis, government policy…and probably every other department of a modern university. He is able to tie these together to form a coherent and logical argument about his views of China going forward.

* The book starts out a little stuffy, and I was preparing myself for 300 pages of academic gobbledygook. But Hung quickly finds his voice, and the book becomes a pleasant and informative narrative. It is not light reading, but it is not a college economics textbook either.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsVery Useful Corrective
By R. Albin TOP 1000 REVIEWER on February 1, 2016
Format: Hardcover
A very well argued and documented discussion of China's position in the world. Hung effectively discredits the naive views that the Chinese "model" is superior and that China is a disruptive power likely to replace the USA or even merely challenge the US as a global hegemon. This is a thoughtful book that starts with a concise and thoughtful overview of Chinese economic history going back to the Early Modern period. This includes description of the engagement with the emerging global economy in the late Ming-Qing periods, a discussion of the lack of industrialization of the very large and advanced Qing economy, and the failure of a series of state-led efforts at catch up during the disastrous 19th century and first half of the 20th century. The latter were due in good part to the weakness of the Qing state and its initial successors. This is followed by an excellent chapter on the Maoist period, which Hung argues convincingly provided the platform for the subsequent growth of the Chinese economy. For all the enormous crimes of the Maoist period, committed by what is likely the most brutal regime in modern history, China was left with a very large, relatively healthy and literate workforce, a real industrial base, and considerable new infrastructure. An interesting point is that this was achieved without incurring external debt, which shielded China from from many of the problems experienced by developing nations in the second half of the 20th century.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsChina's Pitfalls, both from Within and Without
By Alastair Browne on January 29, 2016
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
It is a popular notion that the U.S. is falling as a world power, and that China will rise to take its place. The evidence being the China is getting richer while the U.S. economy is rapidly sinking in debt.
Looks are deceiving, and the author, Ho-fung Hung, associate professor of sciology at Johns Hopkins, and of Chinese extraction, says differently
China may be experiencing a boom, but at present, as you have read in the newspapers, their economy is slowing down in a big way. All we need to do is look at West Germany in the 1970s, during its boom and subsequent bust in the European Union, and Japan’s lost decade in the 1990s, and you will see that China is headed in the same direction. It’s already been on that path for a while. In addition, the U.S. isn’t quite ready to fall as of yet.
Mind you, this book is not pro-U.S. nor anti-China. This is a book on China’s past and present economy versus how the global economy really works.
This book is covered six chapters; the first three exploring China’s economic (and sometimes political) history from the time of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), to the time of European colonization and the subsequent failed republic and the era of Mao, and the “reemergence of capitalism” under Deng Xio-ping and beyond, up to 2008.
The second half, the last three chapters, covers China’s economic alliance and rivalry with the rest of Asia and Africa, even Latin America, the question of a post-American world, and why usurping or undermining the U.S. isn’t as easy as it appears. Note that China has an economic relation with the rest of the world, both to its advantage and disadvantage.
Finally, the book answers why China will not rule the world, or that its path to world domination is a lot harder and costlier than it appears.Read more ›
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