Selling China

well-deployed statistics, serious case-studies of firms, a questionnaire survey organized by the author and a Beijing University research centre, and above all an intelligent, logical and innovative argument ... this volume surely makes Huang one of the world's most authoritative political economists currently writing on China.' International Affairs 'A highly original and insightful analysis which debunks many conventional wisdoms about FDI 's role in China's development. Huang demonstrates why a substantial part of the colossal FDI inflows since the early 1990s is more readily explained by deficiencies in China's institutions and domestic financial intermediation, than by the attractiveness of its investment regime. He points out that much FDI went into traditional labor-intensive industries in China, often sidelining private domestic entrepreneurs. He also shows how FDI influenced China's broader reform strategy and process in positive ways. Indispensable reading for the serious student of China's economic transition.' Pieter Bottelier, former representative of the World Bank in China and adjunct lecturer at Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University 'At a time when many look to China as a model of economic development, Yasheng Huang asks the hard question: is $50 billion in annual foreign direct investment really a sign of unqualified success? Selling China argues that China not only gets more direct investment than any other developing country, but that it is dependent on it because its own financial sector is sickly, leaving billions in Chinese savings idle while billions from across the seas are invested at higher cost. Students of China's economic development - and what it means for the 100 poorer nations looking to follow its lead - will read Huang's careful analysis for its logic and scholarship, and because it is the best available quantification of the size and meaning of foreign investment in China. Business managers, bankers and money managers who think of foreign investment as reassurance will read this book with sobriety, and be better prepared to succeed in the next phase of Chinese economic reformation as a result. Chinese leaders themselves will read this powerful book; but will they be able to address the often politically rooted problems documented by Huang? China's political transition, not just economic growth, rides on the answer.' Daniel Rosen, Institute of International Econopmics, Washington DC 'Selling China delivers its key messages by combining well documented data, solid econometric analyses and first-hand interviews ... For readers who wish quickly to gain insights into the FDI experience in China, or for serious scholars who have a sustained interest in reviewing the exact nature and impacts of FDI in China, this work is a book to be read for its rigour and entertainment.' Yong Zhang, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva Switzerland, Transnational Corporations '... Yasheng Huang offers the reader a fresh analysis of China's economic reforms throughout the 1990s. ... The rigorous clarity of exposition in Huang's work deserves the highest praise.' China Perspectives '... an important contribution to understanding not only FDI in general, but its role in China in particular. ... well researched ...a pleasure to read ... one of the most detailed accounts of FDI in China I have ever read. ... an outstanding book, which I thoroughly recommend to academics who wish to gain a fuller insight into overall global development as well as its specific applications in China. I look forward to Huang's next book.' The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies