Superfusion

Starred review from September 21, 2009
Karabell (A Visionary Nation
) delivers a compelling brief on the unlikely convergence of the U.S. and Chinese economies. He begins with an introduction to China's economic reforms in the post-Mao era and moves on to specific examples of how such American companies as KFC, Avon and Nike used this opportunity to reinvent their businesses to suit the world's largest market. Karabell argues that China's entry into the WTO laid the foundations of “Chimerica”—the symbiotic relationship between China and America that has largely escaped analysis because outmoded quantitative tools examine nation states as closed systems. He also illustrates why China as a low-cost producer is less important than China's new role as avid consumer, why nonperforming loans have meant such different things in China and in the West and the possible causes of the “interest rate conundrum” that so puzzled Alan Greenspan. Essential reading for anyone curious about the increasing economic integration and interdependence between China and America, the public opposition in both nations and the implications for the U.S. as it faces competition from a nation it cannot coerce.