The effects of China’s surge are debatable

Over the last 20 years, China’s love affair with business has flourished so fast that its rate of growth has achieved a trajectory that seems to defy common sense. China’s exports -- shoes, toys, clothing, tools, electronics and, more recently, cars and computers -- have flooded the world market. China’s trade surplus with the U.S. is climbing steadily, now more than $150 billion each year.

It is all the more remarkable that China’s growth has been presided over by the same Communist Party that brought famine and social chaos in the 1960s and ‘70s. Now party and military leaders take part in the country’s most profitable businesses. Nationalist pride is surging.

All of this raises an obvious question: What does China’s emergence mean for the United States? Can China replace America as the world’s dominant superpower? “China, Inc.,” by Ted C. Fishman, sets out to explain how China will do just that. Fishman’s argument is essentially that China, fueled by a huge labor market and preternatural ingenuity, is an unstoppable power that will bury the United States unless we reinvent ourselves. It is a simple theory, badly dwarfed by its flaws.

Fishman, a journalist and former commodities trader, falls blind to the innumerable obstacles China faces, like the weak rule of law, the endemic corruption and the highly politicized nature of its organizations. Fishman is ultimately unable to cut through the China mystique that has bamboozled businessmen since the 1800s. His reasoning is consistently superficial, and he is prone to grand-sounding pronouncements that are actually quite meaningless, like “the fact is that no matter what the Chinese machine produces for the Chinese themselves, the country’s impact on the globe will inevitably and profoundly influence global life nonetheless.” It is tempting to dismiss this book as a flimsy economic treatise. Yet China’s genuinely fast growth and its history of drastic change are compelling reasons to look more closely at the situation. Besides, the mind-set that Fishman embraces is dangerously popular with lawmakers in Washington. Indeed, Fishman’s book will probably appeal most to those looking for a long-term enemy. For nativists who fear outsourcing -- “exporting America” is what CNN’s Lou Dobbs calls it -- this book will reinforce an emotional belief that China is undermining our prosperity. A clear-eyed look suggests otherwise.

China’s current boom began in the countryside, when farmers began ignoring old quota systems in the late 1970s and instead keeping money from surplus crops. China had been so battered by political turmoil and poverty that allowing a teardrop of capitalism might lighten the Communist Party load of trying to feed and house a billion poor people. The teardrop became a stream in the 1980s and then a river in the 1990s. As prosperity flushed coastal cities, more than 100 million farmers came clamoring for factory and construction jobs, and Chinese society was transformed from a rigid totalitarian state into a chaotic authoritarian one with major export muscle.

These days, leaders struggle to keep up with an economy surging beyond their control. There is no master plan directing money flow; it follows the market, inefficiently, with big bureaucratic eddies and sinkholes. The party still controls politics and has been so adept at co-opting Chinese businesspeople that no potential opposition has emerged. Yet party control over the lives of Chinese people is steadily diminishing.

It’s a remarkable story. Unfortunately, Fishman cannot bring it to life. He appears to have visited several Chinese cities, but his descriptions of people and place are cardboard thin. As for his prescription for Americans, Fishman suggests better education and more study of Chinese. Hardly an original idea. And a far cry from “reinventing” ourselves.

So what about that “China threat”? It is a myth. China’s economy is likely to keep growing and expand into realms like information management and software design. Trade and overseas investment will expand. A measure of freedom will continue to exist. The U.S. will continue to have persistent disputes with China over intellectual property, human rights, Tibet, Taiwan. But the reality remains that China is a moderately poor country with an uncertain political system and an ill-equipped military. It is growing fast, predominantly because it started from such a low base. Becoming a rival superpower? Nope.

Seth Faison, a former China correspondent for the New York Times, is the author of “South of the Clouds: Exploring the Hidden Realms of China.”