Ran zheng bpe senior seminar professor wachtel china shakes the world james kynge
China shakes the world review essay
Currently, piracy is not merely a concern to the Chinese population but a given. Going into nightclubs in second-tier cities, customers are served with high-end brandname alcohol products that are locally produced. These products are not only inferior in quality, but can potentially lead to severe alcohol poisoning and sometimes even death. After experiencing the extreme poverty period during the Cultural Revolution, Chinese merchants are investing in every possible way to make a profit, and all morals and rationalities are thrown out. This disintegration of ethics is what China has experienced over the past decades. The author has a solid point and there are in fact millions of examples to support the argument. The trend, however, is not very likely to continue in the future. As the majority of the younger Chinese generations are getting higher degrees of education, more consumer protection laws are put into place, and more pressure is put on China from the international organizations like the WTO, this trend is destined to diminish in the near future.
China’s development also has spillovers to the rest of the world, some are beneficial, and some are harmful to the local economy. As the Prato example listed in the book, Chinese legal and illegal immigrants are supplying a substantial amount of cheap manual labor for the Italian fashion manufacturers. The pros and cons are quite obvious: the fashion companies enjoy a huge cut in labor cost, but the local factory workers are pushed out of their jobs because the Chinese immigrants are willing to accept lower wages while working long hours. This phenomenon of how Chinese immigrants are influencing the world is prevalent in almost every other major western nation. Take the United States for example: downtown Rockford is now empty because all of the manufacturing jobs have gone to China, and Apple is able to make a significant amount of profit because its manufacturers in China can supply the company with very cheap products. While China is taking away the manufacturing jobs from the western nations, it is also giving back service jobs like branding, advertising, and financing, which are the more profitable and lucrative businesses to be in. In the current economic state, China is interacting with the world in a way that everyone is benefiting. While China growing at an unprecedented speed, it is sacrificing its resources and environment as a price.
Under Jiang Zemin’s administration, privatization and the admittance of private entrepreneurs into congress was a great step forward. As Cao Siyuan told James, “ when reform is too fast there is chaos. When reform is too slow there is stagnation. ” This is a very true and real dilemma faced by the Chinese government. If the government reforms too fast, there will be a chaos because a strictly enforced anti-corruption law will probably put a majority of the officials in jail. If the government reforms too slowly, the economy will die down because of the listed issues above, and the whole political party will face the danger of being overthrown by the public. Therefore, as many of the Chinese leaders have been saying, steady reform is the key for the Chinese government. Looking at the issues discussed in James Kynge’s “ China Shakes the World,” China is shaking the world today with its strong production ability and cultural influences.
It is also shocking to the western nations; the series of problems that it faces and how such a fast growing economy will jump over the hurdles to keep its lead in the race are of great interest and will impact the rest of the world. Whether China will have the ability to shake the world in the future will depend on how the political, environmental, population, and resources problems become resolved, while China still maintains a peaceful and collaborative relationship with the rest of the world. Progress in China will not only benefit its local citizens, but will also promote the international economy as well as global harmony.