Review by Choice Review
Jha reviews and analyzes China's rapid economic growth record and discounts the typical explanations for this growth, which focus on savings, investment, labor, directives, and the use of market mechanisms. China's impressive economic growth also stems from the transfer of centralized economic power to regional and local administrations, but Jha, a journalist, reports that capitalism and reformed market institutions have not been widely implemented. State-owned enterprises declined at the national level but increased at the regional and local level. At these levels, government officials deployed their power in the form of corruption and predatory institutions. Jha contends that the political extraction of business revenues plus the economic inefficiencies of decentralized state enterprises makes China's future growth problematic, especially considering its inefficient use of energy resources and serious environmental degradation. Only the export sector is efficient. The government's inability to improve efficiency in the nonexport sector plus domestic economic recessions generates workers' social and political discontent, which now can be spread and mobilized (e.g., Tiananmen Square) via the Internet and cell phones. According to Jha, China requires radical reform to overcome its economic challenges. A detailed discussion of those reforms would have enhanced this insightful work. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections. B. F. Hope California State University, Chico
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
