China today is visible everywhere -- in the news, in the economic pressures battering the globe, in our workplaces, and in every trip to the store. Provocative, timely, and essential -- and updated with new statistics and information -- this dramatic account of China's growing dominance as an industrial superpower by journalist Ted C. Fishman explains how the profound shift in the world economic order has occurred -- and why it already affects us all.

How has an enormous country once hobbled by poverty and Communist ideology come to be the supercharged center of global capitalism? What does it mean that China now grows three times faster than the United States? Why do nearly all of the world's biggest companies have large operations in China? What does the corporate march into China mean for workers left behind in America, Europe, and the rest of the world?

Meanwhile, what makes China's emerging corporations so dangerously competitive? What will happen when China manufactures nearly everything -- computers, cars, jumbo jets, and pharmaceuticals -- that the United States and Europe can, at perhaps half the cost? How do these developments reach around the world and straight into all of our lives?

These are ground-shaking questions, and China, Inc. provides answers.

Veteran journalist Ted C. Fishman shows how China will force all of us to make big changes in how we think about ourselves as consumers, workers, citizens, and even as parents. The result is a richly engaging work of penetrating, up-to-the-minute reportage and brilliant analysis that will forever change how readers think about America's future.

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Excellent Background -
"China Inc." is a five-year old book about China's impact and direction. Normally that makes anything about China obsolete and not worth reading. Author Fishman's book, however, is almost as up-to-date as the day it was printed because it focuses on trends that turn out to be still valid, and because Fishman doesn't not allow himself to be diverted by naysayers and those that belittled the trends. China's people have become, arguable, the greatest natural resource on the planet. It exports deflation, and also stokes soaring commodity input prices. We should pay greater attention to China, less to the Middle East, says Fishman. Example of just one rapid impact: From 2000 - 2003, Chinese exports of just wooden bedroom furniture to the U.S. rose from $360 million to nearly $1.2 billion, while the workforce at American wooden furniture factories fell 35,000 (one-third). The transient 100 - 300 million who make up China's floating population are a roving nation that is potentially the most disruptive group and least easily controlled. Hence, part of the government's motivation to provide jobs. Mao believed China's socialist revolution should originate with the peasantry, rather than urban workers per Marx. About 90% of CCP members in 1949 when the People's Republic was founded were peasants. Sixty percent of the rural population held land when it was all taken by the government. Informal (non-bank lending) for new city dwellers was tied to family members remaining in rural areas. Collection efforts were likely to include staying in those relatives' homes and demanding to be taken care of. (Land could not be used to securitize loans.) Conversely, those remaining in rural areas often sent their most able-bodied member into the city (3/4 were male) to seek his fortune and help them out. Chinese businesses have a fluid view of agreements and often a blatant disregard for legality. Farmers working in local factories when not harvesting/planting represent another large labor source. In 1980, manufacturing comprised 1/4 of Hong Kong's economy - by 2002 it was down to 5%. Per the Mexican government, the country lost 218,000 manufacturing jobs when 500 of the 3,700 export-only maquiladoras closed between 2001-2003. Another 200,000 jobs were lost from factories still running, and pay for those remaining has shrunk as much as 50%. From 2002-03, Mexico lost market share in 13 of the top 20 of its export industries - nearly always to China. Many of the displaced Mexicans moved north and took factory jobs from half the cost of American workers. Availability of qualified American workers was also a problem. In 1995, only about 6% of Wal-Mart merchandise came from abroad - now it is 50 - 85%. After the 2000 dot.com bubble, $30 billion in telecommunications infrastructure was sold to foreign firms for $4 billion; Chinese firms often buy manufacturing equipment when U.S. firms close and auction off their assets. Buildings cost 1/8th that of those in the U.S., machines one-third to one-twentieth. When U.S. producers move to China, their suppliers are then disadvantaged and seemingly pulled as well. It costs about $1-2 billion to develop a new car in the U.S. Chinese producers get it free. Chinese mobile phone calls get through in high-rises and subways - don't in the U.S. For China to make an eg. MRI device even slightly out of date would pit China's industry against the large world market in used machines. Pfizer lost its Chinese patent protection via an unclear ruling in Chinese courts; GlaxoSmithKline simply gave up Avandia when challenged by competitors. Fighting the Chinese government risks losing access to China's much cheaper route for clinical trials, openness to gene therapy, genetically modified crops, etc. Counterfeiters provide Chinese people with affordable goods and its companies the means to compete with strong foreign rivals. Bootleg software is often better - contains all the updates. Linux is becoming popular, providing the government leverage on Microsoft to reveal its code for possible modification for government use. The Chinese rationalise that Microsoft isn't losing anything to bootleg sales because nobody would pay its list prices anyway. Chinese buyers are also aware of charges that Microsoft took Windows from Apple, Explorer from Netscape, etc. The U.S. was complaining about an undervalued RMB since before an October, 2004 conference. Even then it was alleged that the RMB was undervalued 40%, and the Chinese promised to do something. Tracking the first 3 months of 2004, 58 U.S. companies announced plans to move jobs to China (an understatement - many firms keep it quite), plus 69 to Mexico, 31 to India, 39 to other Asian nations, 35 to Central/South America, etc. Overall total - 255 companies in just those three months.