China Price in Top Three China Books

While I was out in the bush in Mozambique this week, Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, was recommending The China Price as one of her top three picks to understand China on National Public Radio. "For every business book goggling at the rate and scale of China's growth," she says, "The China Price is a powerfully needed antidote." Slaughter has just returned from a year living in Shanghai. Listen to her recommendation here.

Occup. health blogs and Indian reviews

Just back from Tokyo and tending to my favorite nezumi, I noticed a mention of The China Price in a blog about occupational health in emerging countries written by Jonathan Zuk out of San Francisco. The blog is filled with really interesting tidbits and superb links - I'm saving it for those alone. Read the mention of the book, only in passing, here. Jonathan appears to have found a review of my book that I had never seen (thank you, Jonathan!) in India's Newindpress on Sunday. I think that makes four reviews or articles about The China Price in India in about a week. Read that review, which is very positive, here.

Three times lucky

In the third article on The China Price in India in a week, The Business Standard ran a review of my book last Friday, calling it an "absorbing read" with "meticulous reporting" and noting "this book is a contrarian offering from the dewy-eyed literature on the China phenomenon." The piece starts: "Nothing has altered global business models quite so dramatically as the Middle Kingdom’s extraordinary skills in manufacturing a vast number of goods at ever-lower prices — the phenomenon that is simply referred to as the China Price. This ability to leverage an enormous population into a competitive advantage has, in turn, created one of the fastest and most revolutionary social transformations in modern history." Read the positive review here.

The high cost of cleaning up

Isabel Hilton, editor of the excellent chinadialogue website, has posted an interview with me about China's emerging environmental issues. We talk about the environmental health crisis and the concept of a "beautiful" law - aspirational, not always respected. As I'm in Tokyo writing this, I'm struck by how few people realize the environmental damage that our passion for cheap goods is causing. Read the interview here.

Women are changing China

World Pulse, a new online magazine about women and children who are changing the world, has done an interview with me for their edition about China. They feature Xie Lihua, a women who edits a magazine for rural Chinese women, AIDS researcher Lichun Tian, Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch and community development specialist Song Qinghua, the wonderful Lu Hongyan or Redbird, and me. It's a huge honor to be considered among such amazing women. Read the interview here.

China out of road with low-cost labor

On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, Business Line, which I now realize is a publication of The Hindu group of newspapers, has run an interview with me about The China Price, noting my comment that China has run out of road with its low-cost labor strategy. I can't stress enough how significant this is for so many industries - I was just talking to someone in the shipping industry who explained that part of the reason that more transshipments are now going to Hong Kong is because of rising labor costs in the mainland. Anyway, in Business Line's print edition, there is a very frightening picture of me, but fortunately, online readers appear to have been spared. Read the interview here.

Isabel Hilton likes The China Price

Isabel Hilton, the highly respected writer and radio journalist, recently recommended The China Price as one of her top three books to read on China in the Observer. She says: "If you want to know where your stuff comes from (luggage, shoes, socks, iPod) this will tell you - and what China"s industrial revolution has done to the environment and the lives and health of the people who make our stuff." Read her recommendation here.

The China Price comes to India

Daily News & Analysis, an Indian English-language newspaper, has run a big piece about The China Price on the front page of their Money section. The piece on the front page starts off with shadow factories, which is great, since few reporters seem to have picked up on this important aspect of the China price. And inside, the paper has devoted its "The Big Picture" section to an interview with me. Read all about it here and here. What's great about an Indian newspaper's interest in these issues is that India is next in line to absorb some of the export processing business. While India is very different from China, in governance, economic structure and culture, the high cost of competitive advantage in today's global supply chains is certainly an issue I would be thinking about if I were an Indian businessman.