'New China Playbook' has a different view than many Western policymakers do on China
NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with economist Keyu Jin about her book: The New China Playbook. She teaches now at the London School of Economics.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The writer and scholar Keyu Jin has a foot in each of two worlds. One is China, and the other is the West.
KEYU JIN: I grew up in Beijing, but I chose to go to the U.S. for high school as a Chinese exchange student when I was 14. And I lived with an American family.
INSKEEP: And you ended up going to college in the United States, as well, right?
JIN: Yes, yes. That was my dream.
INSKEEP: She teaches now at the London School of Economics, and she has written a book about the economic development of her native country. "The New China Playbook" offers a different perspective than many Western policymakers do about China. In fact, she argues that Americans get a lot of things subtly wrong. Americans think about the overpowering bureaucracy of the Communist state, which is true. But she maintains the state apparatus has often been very smart economically. And when it's not, entrepreneurs often push it to change. American business leaders complain of unfair competition in China. Jin sees that differently, too.
JIN: There are lots of Western firms that have succeeded in all sectors, with the exception of the sensitive ones or the strategically important ones of the government, where there's restrictions on foreign investment. And there are losers, as well. If we take the automotive industry or the mobile phone industry, I'd say that in many of these at least consumer-oriented sectors, it's just about competition. Amazon didn't do so well, not because of discrimination but because Alibaba is very powerful, and it caters to the Chinese tastes. Same thing with eBay, which it drove out. Apple did super well, and it continues to thrive. Of course, there are information-related companies like Google and Facebook that has met with challenges, restrictions, outright bans, etc. And I'm not saying that there are no discriminations against foreign companies. But if we actually look at the data in China, the foreign companies actually get more subsidies than domestic companies.