As China Goes, So Goes the World
How Chinese Consumers Are Transforming Everything
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
In this revelatory examination of the most overlooked force that is changing the face of China, the Oxford historian and scholar of modern Asia Karl Gerth shows that as the Chinese consumer goes, so goes the world. While Americans and Europeans have become increasingly worried about China's competition for manufacturing jobs and energy resources, they have overlooked an even bigger story: China's rapid development of an American-style consumer culture, which is revolutionizing the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and has the potential to reshape the world.
This change is already well under way. China has become the world's largest consumer of everything from automobiles to beer and has begun to adopt such consumer habits as living in large single-occupancy homes, shopping in gigantic malls, and eating meat-based diets served in fast-food outlets. Even rural Chinese, long the laggards of consumerism, have been buying refrigerators, televisions, mobile phones, and larger houses in unprecedented numbers. As China Goes, So Goes the World reveals why we should all care about the everyday choices made by ordinary Chinese. Taken together, these seemingly small changes are deeper and more profound than the headline-grabbing stories on military budgets, carbon emissions, or trade disputes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although China remains nominally socialist, consumerism has become deeply entrenched, the ramifications of which will be considerable and global according to Gerth (China Made), Oxford University professor of modern Chinese history. He paints a vivid picture and historical context for the waning of frugality and the traditionally high rates of saving and the rise of pop culture, luxury-brand consumption and car culture, a burgeoning advertising industry, the ubiquity of Chinese counterfeits, and more sordidly the development of the largest commercial sex work force in the world, the theft of baby girls for adoption export, and the sale of essential organs. Gerth makes an arresting argument that Chinese consumption may be the panacea for the scrabbling economies of the West; Chinese demand for American and European high-tech goods, financial services, and other products might create jobs and economic growth and, in turn, lead to a stable, increasingly capitalistic, and eventually democratic China. Required reading for those interested in shifting global power dynamics and current consumption patterns.
Customer Reviews
Nice read
Good book
Great introduction in current Chinese culture
I just arrived in China picking this book up before I left in order to get a better picture of the country I plan to live for the coming years. It provides a wealth of information to understand how China and it's people tick. Keeping the information in a logical order never loosing the big picture, the book shares a rich details.
For anyone who is interested to understand what is actually happening in the China and understanding it in it's context this is a great recourse.