This summer of 2019, I spent three weeks in China. It was a fairly interesting time to visit China and the trip was eye-opening in many ways. In fervent anticipation of the trip, I spent time reading several books on China. In this first post in a set of essays on China, I share some thoughts on resources that I found helpful to understand China. Later, I will post some observations from the trip and my views on the current climate.
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As an Operations faculty, I have had the pleasure of working with bright students and colleagues from China. Yet, I understood very little about the region, culture, and language. I grew up in India, which is comparable to China in its size and heritage. India is a polyphony of conflicting narratives and identities of national consciousness. In this sense, from a distance, I found the often heralded “oneness” of China endlessly puzzling.
When we discuss global sourcing issues in the class I teach, the students and I disentangle various supply chain issues — the US-China trade war, the Intellectual property debate, and recently, the HK-China dilemma. Even these events, which are extraordinary for our times, are not entirely novel in the complicated history of the region. For instance, the Taiping rebellion cost 20 million lives.
To examine why things are the way they are now, we need to know how they got here. History is an exercise in causal inference. History is not just the sequence of events that occurred, but an examination of how the latter events are a consequence of earlier events. If one believes in operational solutions based on causal inference, the first step to understand China is to learn its history.
In China, history is inescapable.
China’s past breathes through every nook in its mega-cities. Its history suffuses through the gentle air suspended in the wake of its past miseries — miseries that the modern state is busily demolishing into lingering oblivion. But, these memories are stubborn. The impressive symbols of modernity, the myriad steel-glass skyscrapers, the high-speed trains, and ever frenetic pace of social technology in China can’t quite hide its ancientness. The locus of China’s past is reflected in its now-simplified pictograms, in its astonishingly diverse cuisines, in its chagrined yet hopeful faces, and in the effortless intonations of the voices that speak the language in its multiple variants.
This historical comportment is seen in simple things. Look at how China records events on paper: YYYY-MM-DD. It is not the incremental “DD-MM-YYYY” system used in the British Commonwealth, and not the “month-day-year” in the US, reflecting agrarian endeavors at the mercies of the seasons.
In China, the YEAR comes first, for the main question is “At which point are you now in China’s story?”. China has existed nearly forever, and one year is the least perceptible unit of time. China’s name in Mandarin is Zhongguo (literally, Central or Middle Kingdom) for it was the center of the world. The Middle Kingdom existed even before its very first dynasty of emperors – the Xia dynasty going back into 3000 BC.
China is surely a complex subject. Fortunately, there are excellent resources to understand China. Here is a list of books and web resources that I found very helpful. (Your list may vary and I would love to hear your suggestions). Together, they synthesized many of my views.
Books
Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence
It is a testament to China’s long history that Modern China begins in the late Ming Dynasty (later 17th century). For people with STEM backgrounds like me who did not have the fortune of Prof. Spence’s introductory class at Yale, his book is a great introduction. At 700 pages + notes, due to Spence’s narrative gifts, the book is both an accessible page-turning read and a scholarly overview.
Spence often points out the historical parallels to the past (for example how torn-apart China in 1912-1949 is comparable to the Warring States Period). He adds color through by taking mini-detours into individual lives, literature, and socio-economic conditions (e.g., Cao Xueqin’s writings, early Chinese immigrants in America, British East India Company, Pearl S. Buck, June 4th). For instance, he employs data on contemporary house usage and currency inflation to show how the worsening peasant social and economic conditions in Guomindang Shanghai hastened the formation of PRC.
Intermittently, idylls of peace and a deeply-idolized social order often bind China, even as revolution and chaos seem to lurk around the corner. My book ends with the aftermath of Tiananmen Square. Even as the recent transformation of China defies belief, Spence’s book provides arguably the best lens to understand the current dynamics in China.
On China by Henry Kissinger
The first third of Kissinger’s book illustrates China as a civilizational concept better than any other book. Kissinger explains why the Mongols, Manchurians, and other invading barbarians got absorbed into the culture that is China rather than imposes their systems. China is a body in which the invading parasites themselves become antibodies and eventually fortify the immune systems.
Kissinger provides an insider’s view of the political landscape and diplomatic wrangling leading to Nixon’s flight to China. To me, these details were probably the least interesting part of the book. The best parts are the Kissinger’s (candid?) characterizations of Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping and their ideas.
Factory Girls: From Village to City in Changing China by Leslie Chang
It was amazing to see the production factories in China are brimming with women in the workforce (some apparel factories that I visited had >75% women). According to World Bank data, the female labor market participation rate is 61% in China (as a comparison, it is 56% in the US and 21% in India). Leslie Chang follows the lives of two young “factory girls” and their many friends, in an ultra-competitive supply chain jungle that is Dongguan. As the book progresses, Leslie identifies her own life in their lives more and more. Unmoored from their families and hometowns, hustling daily for better lives, vacillating between hopefulness and destitution, their migrant lives are intense versions of our silent dreams, baking in the harshest glare of the world.
River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler.
Peter Hessler’s book tracks two years in the town of Fuling in Sichuan region on the banks of the Yangtze River, as a Peace Corps volunteer and a waiguoren (foreigner) teaching English at a school, before the town with its history is submerged in the rising waters of the Three Gorges Dam project. Poignant, lyrical, and written with clear-eyed sensitivity, the book details the dashing dreams of his students and the hopes of the simple people holding on to the cusp of irreversible progress. In those stuffy crowded boat rides, rains on paddy-fields, morning runs and mandarin struggles, stick-stick men, xiaoweis and baijius, Shakespeare performances and party pyramids, Hessler paints loneliness and camaraderie in an evanescent world waiting to dissolve in the rising waters.
His follow-up books (Oracle Bones and Country Driving) are great as well. A good point to begin Hessler’s writings is his article called China’s Boomtowns that he wrote for National Geographic in 2007. IA lovely read about supply chains, as it is a captivating study of a manufacturing plant that makes small rings for bras and nothing else.
One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment by Mei Fong.
The median age in China in 1970 was 19.2 years and it rose to 37 years in 2015 (Statista data). This extraordinarily rapid aging is almost entirely due to the radical one-child policy, that the Chinese government reversed only recently and belatedly. To the extent that we see throngs of young people in the Chinese cities, it is only because there are millions of teenagers in China, and they are either city-born or if rural, migrating to urban areas.
In a country where Confucian values of filial piety and lawfulness reign supreme, the one-child policy has precipitated dramatic social aftershocks. With a great eye for details, Mei Fong dives into the new pressured social norms — the “child emperors”, “overqualified” women graduates, the marriage markets, young families struggling to take care of their grandparents, and the poignant lives of parents who lost their only children. The implementation of the policy was rife with unreasoning inequity, as, during my trip, I met many young Chinese with multiple siblings and heard their stories.
Poorly Made in China by Paul Midler
One of the criticisms often-cast against outsourcing is the supposedly poor quality of production in China, although this has not been my experience. Paul Midler’s book argues for this controversial view, documenting various mid-tier suppliers’ games of “cutting corners” in the 2000s. To be clear, I disagree with this criticism. From talking to several researchers and looking at sourcing firms’ products, I believe that production in China for top-tier firms are of the highest quality made with expert production know-how. My visit to China only increased this conviction.
So, how does one square these opposing perspectives? My view is that production firms in China have acquired increased capability in the last decade and have “moved up the value chain”. This technological wherewithal developed in China to smoothen global supply chains is also why “insourcing” is not as easy as flipping on a switch.
While the premise of the book is experiential, Midler, a Wharton grad, makes several interesting points. For instance, Midler records the best argument I have heard for why counterfeits are valued, using a reproduced Ming dynasty vase: for their cultural appreciation of skill necessary in reproducing the aesthetic details.
How Asia Works by Joe Studwell.
Likely the best book on the industrial policy of the region that I have read. Since international markets are inherently more competitive, export-oriented firms rapidly increase their productivity (through a better acquisition of talent and technology). As a result, over time, the firms focusing on exports become highly advanced and competitive — with good policymakers stepping into weed-out the less efficient firms. I could see this happening first hand in China, where a firm such as Xiaomi has seen an explosive growth exporting and competing in the cheaper android-ruled mobile markets all over Asia.
Other Books:
After the overview of the history and social landscape, some inscrutable writings in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War make more sense (Why is that the Moral Law requires people lay their lives with the accord with the ruler?). I also feel that one can appreciate Lao Tze better. (I recommend Ursula Le Guin’s adaptation that read sometime back).
Inevitably, more books on China grabbed my attention. Here are a few more that I am enjoying reading so far: Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos, God’s Chinese Son by Jonathan Spence, AI Superpowers by Kai-Fu Li, China in Ten Words by Yu Hua, and Corpse Walkers by Liao Yiwu.
Poetry:
In the 1990s, I loved reading translated poems of Tang dynasty poets on newsgroups. There is a considerable debate on how to translate faithfully the grammar-less imagery and tones of Mandarin. I liked and recommend Three Chinese Poets by Vikram Seth. My favorite translation in Seth’s collection is the following achingly beautiful poem by Li Bai — a poem that every Chinese middle schooler knows.
The floor before my bed is bright:
Moonlight – like hoarfrost – in my room.
I lift my head and watch the moon.
I drop my head and think of home.
Fiction & Film:
One day, I hope to tackle the Chinese literary classics, “The Dream of Red Chamber”, “Three Kingdoms” and “A Journey to the west”.
Chinese SF is less dystopian and more hard-sciencey. I found Liu Cixin’s Three-body problem brilliant but written in an inaccessible style.
Wandering Earth, the film that broke box office records in China, is very much like Avatar and is worth a watch if you are an SF fan, just for the audacity of the sling-shot idea. Hong Kong has historically been the epicenter of film-making, but there are good films from the Mainland as well. Among the mainland films, Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern and Kaige Chen’s Farewell My Concubine are good beginning points to explore. Here is my film list for lovers of foreign cinema, who want to use the story-telling in films as an approach to understanding China better.
Two documentaries that I recommend: Last Train Home, about migrant workers returning home from factories, and Michael Wood’s BBC documentary Story of China for its bite-size summations of history.
Podcasts:
Two podcasts that I highly recommend are the History of China Podcast by Chris Stewart and the China History Podcast by Laszlo Montgomery. Despite their extremely similar names, their approaches are complementary: HCP follows a linear narrative starting from the Xia dynasty and is working its way to modern-day — the podcast is now in the Song Dynasty period. CHP is more accessible, as it is episodic in structure, and explores a series of topics (as varied as Tea, Opium, Zhou Enlai, and Morris “2-Gun” Cohen), each one over 3-6 episodes.
Short on Time? Try the 1-Hour Book and Munk Debates on YouTube:
Concise 1-hour debates with big-name speakers. Most of the Munk debates are on political topics that I do not care much about. However, a couple of them were focused on China. I recommend watching highlights of “Is China a threat to liberal international order” particularly for Kishore Mahbubani’s synthesis of the views held by Lee Kuan Yew. Another Munk debate (decidedly less-impressive in my view) on The Rise of China features Niall Ferguson, Henry Kissinger, David Li, and Fareed Zakaria.
There is also an excellent 1-hour China book that does what it promises.
Web Resources:
James Fallows lived in China and covered many interesting viewpoints related to China for the Atlantic magazine. Many of his essays are here.
Goodreads Page by Hadrian is an excellent resource for all kinds of wonderful books, including many books on China.
One of my colleagues recommends Fall and Rise of China on Great Courses. Due to time constraints, I did not take the course, but I value his recommendations, so I thought I’d pass on the recommendation.
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