Books
The Challenges of Chinese Authoritarian Capitalism
In three decades, China has risen from near collapse to a powerhouse–upending policy and business conventions across the globe. In this highly readable book, James McGregor offers extensive research and key insights that pull back the curtain on China’s economic power. Published in 2012, this book foreshadowed the plans and policies employed by Chinese President Xi Jinping to pursue his aggressive tech policies such as Made-in-China 2025 that have made China the dominant global manufacturing power and a peer competitor with the US on technology prowess.
McGregor describes the much-vaunted “China Model” as one of authoritarian capitalism, a unique system that McGregor believes must be radically overhauled for the country to continue its march toward prosperity. The system is proving incompatible with global trade and business governance, and relying on an outdated investment and export model that’s running out of steam.
Lessons from the Front Lines of Doing Business in China
Often referred to as ‘the bible for anybody doing business in China,’ One Billion Customers shows how to navigate the often treacherous waters of Chinese deal making. Brilliantly written by a former The Wall Street Journal China bureau chief turned successful corporate executive, the book reveals indispensable, street-smart strategies, tactics, and lessons for succeeding in the world’s fastest growing market. Foreign companies rightly fear that Chinese partners, customers or suppliers will steal their technology or trade secrets or simply pick their pockets. Testy relations between China’s Communist leaders and the U.S. and other democracies can trap foreign companies in a political crossfire. In his three decades in China, McGregor has seen or experienced it all, and in this book he shares his insights about how China really works.
One Billion Customers offers compelling narratives of personalities, business deals, and lessons learned—from Morgan Stanley’s creation of a joint-venture Chinese investment bank to the pleasure dome of a smuggler whose $6 billion operation demonstrates how corruption greases the wheels of Chinese commerce. With nearly one hundred strategies for conducting business in China, this unprecedented account combines practical lessons with the story of China’s remarkable rise to power.
A Web of Industrial Policies
McGregor’s report explains the details of China’s landmark indigenous innovation industrial policies while placing them in historical, political, social and economic context. Only through understanding this “intricate web” and clearly analyzing the emerging global repercussions can business leaders and policymakers in the US, China and across the globe seek solutions that avoid China becoming enmeshed in political confrontation and protracted trade disputes with those countries and companies that lead the world in innovation and invention.
