The Coming Collapse of China

by Gordon G. Chang

Book Overview

Fully revised and updated edition covering China's new membership of the WTO and with a new introduction. 'Damning data and persuasive arguments that should set some Communist knees a-knocking.'... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 037550477X
• ISBN13: 9780375504778
• Release Date: July 2001
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

The collapse of the coming collapse of China

Gordon wrote this book based on his assumption following the collapse of Soviet Union. The Coming Collapse of China is collapse! Contrary to his crystal ball prediction, China still grows and become the world's second largest economy after USA. Why and how? Without following the Western way, China catches up with the adoption of the Three People's principles written by the late founder of the first Asia Republic, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Since 1949, China stands up, rich up and strong up! China will gain back its lost glory as named Sick Man of Asia by British and American opium pushers. Britain waged immoral war as trade was in China favor with gun-boat diplomacy of Might is Right! Now, the same history repeats itself as President Trump declared trade war against China with high tariffs. It is interesting to find that Trump Campaign banner for 2020 is made in CHINA! Will Mr Chang make the same claim now? Do not waste time and money on this book. Thanks.

Evolution or Collapse

Obviously no one can predict the future with enough clarity to allow useful policy choices. Nonetheless, it is important to have ideas and opinions that, in fact, dissent from the current fad of a Chinese economic superpower. At a minimum, it allows certain policy preparations of "precaution."Most scholars did not predict the fall of the Soviet communism. In fact, most (including Paul Kennedy) predicted a long, if stagnating, survival of the Soviet system. They were wrong.Has China progressed in the past 50 years? Undoubtedly so. Does it make the state more stable? Not necessarily. Revolutions occur and governments topple quite often not when the states perform poorly, but precisely when they begin to perform well, but with the important proviso that the gains are not generally shared in spite of raised expectation by the public.I believe that the PRC is now in that phase and will be for the next 5-10 years. Its gains are indeed impressive, but its benefits are still limited to the ruling elite. The gains have, however, raised enormous expectations on the part of the Chinese public. In order to meet the expectations, the political environment will inevitably have to be reformed. Otherwise, the gains will largely feed top-level corruption and breed an extreme discontent - a sure recipe for the collapse of "the mandate from the heaven" to rule.Both Taiwan and South Korea are often cited as models for those who believe that the PRC will make an equally successful transition to "democracy." While it is true that Taiwan and South Korea survived the tumultous phase of the mass demand for political participation (largely as an outgrowth of demand for more egalitarian sharing the economic gains), one must realize the critical differences between these states and the PRC.They are, namely, the fact that the above two did not have an ideologically institutionalized state-party aparatus to the extent that China does, that unlike the PRC the two states had active "push" for democratization from its guarantor of security, the United States and, lastly, the fact that as "small" countries they possessed fairly centralist economic, social and cultural cohesion that China does not enjoy.

Highly Recommended!

Like a coroner opening a corpse, Gordon Chang dissects the current Chinese regime. His book is an indictment of the Chinese Communist Party, part autopsy report and part emotional polemic. While the ultimate truth of Chang's predictions will emerge only after the fact, the evidence that he amasses is impressive and convincing. Most intriguing is his contention that China's accession into the World Trade Organization - heralded by many as the country's economic panacea - ultimately will expose the weaknesses of China's infrastructure and begin the process of disintegration. Although Chang strongly supports his claim that collapse is imminent, you can't help but wonder if he too quickly dismisses the ability of the Party to react to changing times. After all, the regime has already outlasted most of its Communist counterparts by a decade. Nevertheless, we [...] strongly recommend this accessible book to policymakers, anyone doing business or investing in China, and to general readers, who will quickly be captivated.

Is the Wolf Really Coming?

Gordon G. Chang has provided a powerful analytical framework to interpret current developments in Chinese politics and economy. His argument that the Chinese Communist Party is running out of time as China's accession to WTO swiftly approaches is compelling. Despite two decades of reform, China under the authoritarian rule of CCP is now terminally ill, Chang argues, and cannot be cured. It can only be resuscitated from the death of CCP. He has skillfully supported his thesis with history and reader-friendly statistics, and also made good use of colorful anecdotes to make his point. Because The Coming Collapse of China is an open-ended apocalyptic tale, it has forced me to look for the ending not in the the last page of the book, but in the pages of Asiaweek, Far Eastern Economic Review, The Economist, and the Asian Wall Street Journal that I now earnestly read. Chang's reality thriller is still underway, and getting more and more interesting. The only weakness of the book that I found was Chang's inflexible, or even obssessive, position regarding the inevitability of the breakdown of the China as we know it. Of course, that was his greatest strength too.

"No one will own me." ---Becki Hu

Who or what group will "own" China in the decades ahead? Gordon Chang doesn't say who, but he bluntly asserts that change--catastrophic change--is coming to the People's Republic of China in the next five to 10 years. His views are based on careful consideration of many facts, and he may be correct."The Coming Collapse of China" is written in a lively, journalistic style, and each chapter stands on its own as an interesting and insightful essay. The chapter titles themselves are intriguing, e.g., Lake of Gasoline, Future@China.Communism, Biting the Snakes, Highway Girls. And Chang, a U.S.-born Chinese who has lived and worked in China for nearly two decades, writes from his heart as well as his mind.From my own travels in China, I have found that the Chinese Communist Party is increasingly challenged to remain relevant, particularly so as China has opened up in recent decades and enjoyed economic growth. Chang agrees, and forcefully makes the point that the Chinese experiment in reforming markets under central control could go terribly wrong. That would be catastrophic for China and a blow to its trading partners.For one example, Chang points to Shanghai and the overbuilding that occurred there in the 1980s-1990s. Now, with occupancy rates as low as 30 percent (I have seen new, vacant office buildings there), and investment loans to repay, what's to be done? The central government can prop up only so many failed enterprises, and fewer once membership in the World Trade Organization is conferred.Chang also cites acts of violence by unnamed groups--terrorist acts--which the CCP is reluctant to admit. The series of blasts that ripped through the heart of Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei Province in March 2001, and which officials blamed on a lone fugitive, Jin Ruchao, could not have been the work of one man, Chang asserts.Does Chang see any hope for the future? Indeed he does. The penultimate chapter explores whether or not the Chinese state can evolve. Informing us that most of the progress that China has enjoyed since 1978 has been the people's, not their government's, Chang quotes dissident Wei Jingsheng: "The laws of history tell us that only when the old is gone can the new take its place."This is not a position to be taken lightly, for the implications of change are profound, not only for China but for the region and the world. Still, give the CCP and its recent leadership some credit. It was the "four modernizations" of Zhou Enlai and implemented by Deng Xiaoping that set China's economy rocketing forward by adjusting ideological precepts to mesh with free market economics. Jiang Zemin has also been active and effective in global outreach, and in presenting China's (and the CCP's) case before world leaders.There are alternative views, some complementary to Chang's, and others less so. The great value of Chang's work is that he presents a position that is clearly at one extreme, and does so with a depth of knowledge and experience that can n

Look at China in a new way

I picked this book as supplementary reading for a summer course I've been taking at NYU, I guess because the title made it sound more interesting than a lot of the other books on offer, and I really liked it. It's very contemporary, reads more like a magazine article than a history book, and what I particularly liked about it is the way the author sticks his neck out and doesn't mince words. Not one for wishy washy predictions, he says the Chinese govt will fall in 5 to 10 years, and he sets out to say why. You can tell he's lived in China because he uses examples from the street life there, not ones he's read about in the newspaper. I recommend this book--it's exciting. I felt I was on the cutting edge of some new idea, reading it. I don't really know if Chang is right, but his book's made me look at China in a new way.