Selling China Short
The flow of doom-mongering books about China has lately become more like a tidal wave. Whatever their strengths, recent contributions also tell a compelling – and seemingly timeless – story about how Western observers’ assumptions shape their conclusions, leaving one to wonder how China ever got to where it is today.
Nicholas R. Lardy, The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China? Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2019
George Magnus,Red Flags: Why Xi’s China is in Jeopardy, Yale University Press, 2018
NEW HAVEN – The dark side of China is a source of constant inspiration for authors. The appearance of books filled with Sino-gloom is usually predictable – ebbing and flowing with the tide of global angst. The storylines are different, but the conclusions almost always end up roughly in the same place: China is poised to fail.