For years, China’s transformation from one of the world’s poorest nations was lauded as a triumph that lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. There were always questions about data reliability and growth sustainability, but the general views on China have recently taken a decidedly sour turn. Concerns abound about state interference in the economy, an ageing population, and high debt level. Making Sense of China's Economy untangles China’s complex economic structure, evolving issues and curious contradictions, and explains some key features of this most puzzling of global economic powerhouses. This book reveals how factors such as demographics, the initial stage of development in 1978, the transition away from full state ownership and central planning, the dual urban-rural society, and a decentralised governance structure have combined to shape the economy, its development and its reforms. It shows how the pragmatic and adaptive nature of China’s policymaking upends familiar perspectives and hinders simple cross-country comparisons. The book also explores crucial topics including the property market, debt accumulation and environmental challenges. In this book, Tao Wang innovatively weaves the multiple strands of China’s economy into a holistic and organic tapestry that gives us unique insights from both a Chinese and an international perspective. This book is critical reading for business leaders, investors, policymakers, students, and anyone else hoping to understand China’s economy and its future evolution and impact, written by a specialist who has studied the country from both inside and out.

This book is a collection of essays from MacroPolo, the think tank of the Paulson Institute in Chicago. The picture of China that emerges in this volume is one built from the ground up, across economics, politics, and technology. In addition, because China’s rise has important global dimensions, a US-China section composed of two essays is included, which combine both a macro perspective and a view of the bilateral relationship through the history of a significant multinational firm. Finally, this volume will include an original introduction and conclusion by Damien Ma, editor and co-founder of MacroPolo. The essays are analytically driven and provide novel perspectives, context, granular data, and policy conclusions that get lost in the daily churn of news cycles. None of the essays in this volume focuses on national security or geopolitics. Rather, the volume grapples squarely with how China’s domestic economic, political, and technological developments have transformed not only itself but also the world at large.

This edited work attempts to ‘make sense’ of recent developments in the field of Human Resource Management in the People’s Republic of China. It attempts to see how the paradoxes and contradictions engendered by contemporary Chinese society are being resolved in the enterprises and workplaces of the Middle Kingdom. The book starts with an overview of the literature, then follows with a selection of micro-oriented, concerned with topics like recruitment and retention, then macro-oriented empirical studies, a number of the latter dealing with strategic as well as performance issues, with last, those comparing sets of societal cultural values. It attempts a synthesis of what has emerged from recent research on the ‘harmonious society’. These contributions from authors based in universities in eight countries, in Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, United Kingdom and USA, cover a wide range of research on HRM, from the micro- to the macro-. Six of them teach and/or research at campuses on the Mainland. Their empirical, field-based research covers the last half-decade and presents a robust picture of both what practitioners have adopted and how researchers have tried to ‘make sense’ of what they have investigated. This book was based on a special issue of Intl Journal of Human Resource Management.

This wide-ranging collection addresses many important issues in China's economy under transition, from grain production to trade, to the development of township enterprises, the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, the emergence of big business, money demand and consumption behaviour. Together, the studies provide insightful analysis and discussion of economic policies, illuminating the institutional context within which reform strategies are negotiated and implemented in different economic sectors.

This book examines the dynamics of power within the families of married women who have migrated from rural areas to China's Dalian Economic Zone. Engaging the question of whether waged work gives women power in their families, this ethnographic study finds that women do indeed use their new positions and urban status to negotiate their family status. However, women use these new resources not necessarily to promote their own individual liberation, but rather to strengthen their contribution as wives and, especially, as mothers. Thus, this new modernity provides a space for the re-inscribing of traditional roles, even as it may work to give women new-found power within their families. How and why this process occurs is related to the dual inequalities these women face as rural migrants and as women.

China's rapid and sustained growth over last thirty years has propelled it to become the world's second largest economy today and potentially the largest in the foreseeable future. As one of the first major economies pulling out of recession and the last remaining major socialist country in the world today, China presents a challenge to established thinking on the essential primacy of global capitalism and the settled nature of the world system - as China becomes more integrated into the world economy and the international system, both are themselves potentially transformed as a result of China’s involvement. This book explores a wide range of issues connected with the impact of China on the global economy and the prevailing international system. Subjects covered include China’s multinationals, international acquisitions, the exchange rate, research and development and technology transfer, China’s emerging major business groupings, and small and medium sized enterprises.

This book presents a detailed background to the circular economy in China, explores government measures to promote it in China’s market economy, and introduces the supporting laws and policies. The book goes on to describe, from a technology perspective, successful circular economy practices in sectors such as agriculture, iron and steel, cement, coal-fired power, chemistry, paper manufacturing and city mineral. This book sheds some light on what China has done and achieved to change the mode of economic development in order to minimize its negative impacts on resources and the environment. Readers will learn from and be inspired by China’s circular economy practices. Industrializing countries can also draw on China’s experiences to solve their own problems, enabling them to make their economic development resource-saving and more environmentally friendly. If this is achieved, this book can be considered a modest contribution to the sustainability of human society.

China's spectacular rise challenges established economic moulds, both at the national level, with the concept of "state capitalism", and at the firm level, with the notion of indigenous "Chinese management practices". However, both Chinese and Western observers emphasise the transitional nature of the reforms, thereby leaving open the question as to whether China's reform process is really a fast catch-up process, with ultimate convergence to global standards, or something different. This book, by a leading economist and sinologist, argues that "culture" is an exceptionally useful tool to help understand fully the current picture of the Chinese economy. Drawing on a range of disciplines including social psychology, cognitive sciences, institutional economics and Chinese studies, the book examines long-run path dependencies and cultural legacies, and shows how these contribute crucially to the current cultural construction of economic systems, business organisations and patterns of embedding the economy into society and politics.