China: The Race to Market: What China's Transformation Means for Business, Markets and the New World Order

by Jonathan Story

What China's transformation means for business, markets and the world order

Here is a book on China that places corporations center stage. Story paints the broad canvas of China's transformation in all its dimensions, while providing sound advice to senior management. Here is corporate strategy on a grand scale. A must read.
Par-Anders Pehrson, Vice President Leadership, Ericsson

A very informative analysis of the political and economic transformation taking place in China and how this impacts business decisions, but more generally is a good analysis of China for western audiences.
Eric A.Hyer, Brigham Young University, Utah

Jonathan Story has written an admirably clear, well informed and judiciously timed book that should deservedly attract a wide readership among those seeking a comprehensive yet penetrative knowledge of contemporary China, set in its international context.

Professor Jack Hayward FBA, Chairman, China Programmes, The British Academy.

Making strategies for the business future of China

With WTO membership under its belt and a new leadership emerging, China could be ready to take its place in the global economy as an economic powerhouse. But despite its immense economic progress transformation, the political challenge facing China's leaders could yet undermine the transformation. Is the Chinese dragon about to take flight or run out of puff? How far will this transformation go and what are the implications for business? China's present and future challenge is the business world's future opportunity.

In China; The Race to Market, Jonathan Story helps you and your business to answer three essential questions: what direction is China's development taking? Will china successfully emerge as a world power? And what do we need to know to do business with or invest in the emerging China?

The book provides sharp insights on how to tailor corporate strategies to local conditions, and links public policy, corporate strategy, and markets in a smarter global business perspective.

How can the business world make strategies for a country as multi-faceted and complex as China? The answer requires us to consider the future, where risks and rewards really lie, and to look at a much broader canvas than we conventionally do when we consider business or investment strategy. We have to understand the forces making China's future before we can learn about making business strategy there. Markets, politics, demographics and technology all have a role to play

This book discusses the drivers and possible outcomes for the development of China - covering issues such as Sino-American relations, entry to the World Trade Organisation, the state-market relationship, and internal reform - and sets out a framework for understanding and doing business with the Chinas that emerges.

By covering the politics and economics of China on different levels - international, national, and local - and by digging into history where necessary, the book will offer an informed judgement about where China is heading and what this means for business people. It will also investigate key industry sectors, such as telecoms, finance and automobiles, from the viewpoint of western corporations, Chinese companies, and state or provincial authorities.

A fine and very informative book - Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Director of the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China, Hong Kong

Well-structured, balanced in perspective and profound in analysis.
Li Chunfang, from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0273663216
• ISBN13: 9780273663218
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: FT Press
• Length: 277 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Highly Recommended!

Author Jonathan Story has assembled in one relatively short book a dense collection of facts, hypotheses and perspectives on China. Unlike many writers who have fixed ideas about China and use their books to promote their ideas, Story gives full and fair time to competing viewpoints. He is not selling a hypothesis, but exploring possibilities. Readers who prefer easy and definitive answers may feel frustrated, because Story provides only difficult and ambiguous alternatives. Yet his approach is solid, and more accurate than a finite stance could be. The future of anything is uncertain, and China is egregiously inscrutable, so any honest pronouncement on China's future must acknowledge uncertainty, difficulty and ambiguity. If the book has a demerit, it is that the author sometimes offers interesting, but meandering digressions through the minutiae of Chinese chronology without fully explaining why the details matter. China is perplexing, so we welcome this compilation of insight - we would have been glad to read even more.

Understanding China for business

China: the race to market is an excellent book for anyone who wishes to understand the direction in which the Chinese polity and economy is developing. For providing a background for developing strategies for business development it is therefore a must. And in addition it is a very enjoyable read. The major attraction of the analysis is the clear exposition of the various forces bearing on policy making and action in China within the Communist state, and by implication therefore on the the economy and the business environment. One cannot make business strategy without reference to a coherent macro view of the relevant environment and for any business either seeking to operate in China, or likely to be impacted directly or indirectly by events there, there can be nothing better than this book to establish a coherent view of likely development.

China, Politics, and Business

Jonathan Story is one of only a few writers who can relate so credibly the connection between business decision-making and public policy making.. In China: Race to market, he documents political and economic developments in the emerging China of the 21st century. More importantly, especially for those at the helm of Western enterprises, Professor Story explains in clear terms the opportunities and the challenges facing those seeking to establish and grow businesses in China. It's a good read: compelling, thought provoking, and laced with sound and practical business advice.