China is not so different after all. Their economy develops more or less along the same trajectory as many mature markets have gone before her. First, the trading of goods fueled by low labour costs. Technologies are copied and pirated to build up internal capability. Along the line, some threshold is reached and low wages for PhDs to work in factories just doesn't make sense anymore. Then came the value-added phase where quality and knowledge capitals becoming increasingly valuable. Volume and price alone is no longer the driving force behind the growth. Innovations and the beginning of the service sectors accelerate as the economy climbs up the value food chain. These aren't sequential steps, varying degree of each element are fighting for positions all the time. Japan went through the same path, so did Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea. Even Hong Kong, with its relatively small population, have followed similar paths with their clothing and toys industry. What is unique in China's case, is the sheer size and speed at which this is happening. Unlike previous markets, many Chinese cities with the population of smaller nations did not want to wait for the rest of the country to catch up. Viewing China as one single economy may be deceptive.

Against this backdrop, Harney put a human face on this picture. She lives in Hong Kong, and speak both Japanese and Mandarin. The China Price is an intimate account of her journey to understand the competing forces at play, the duality of the nation's conscience and its place in a world of globalisation. It was not so much of an expose. The questionable accounting practices, the phony audits, the frustrating emphasis on personal relationship and the need to be in the inner circles and many other ills are well documented. Harney's ability to build trust with the factory peasant girls, with the widow of a gemstone worker who carried her husband on her back to seek daily medical care, the amputee worker's advocate who setup a legal advisory service with virtually no professional training except sheer gut and determination, makes this a unique business book. Wal-Mart features prominently in the book. Rather than spending millions on audits and feel-good trainings, Wal-Mart and others should examine their procurement strategy. Can extreme low cost manufacturing be sustained in the long term ? Are consumers addicted to China price like a drug ? Is this fueling consumer debt, dangerously ? May be the millions spent could be better utilised by helping the Chinese companies to move up the value chain. Those who understand the need of China to move to a more knowledge based economy will reap the benefits for decades to come.

If you're interested in reading more recent reviews and commentary about The China Price, please see my blog at http://thechinaprice.blogspot.com and the book's website at http://thechinaprice.org. There are links on those sites to purchase the book through Amazon.com as well.

This book gives an in-depth look at the human cost of cheap merchandise from China, both to Americans and to the Chineese workers that make them.

Discussions of free trade sing its virtues, while the reality is something different: the unequal terms of that trade, especially vis a vis China and the United States, where two sets of rules are at work. One result is the 'China price' and the growing imbalance in trade relationships. The larger picture shows the other side to globalizaton: the exploitation of cheap labor, disregard of environmental law, and the generally totalitarian nature of this mutant form of capitalism. This book usefully presents the information absent from most public media discussions of the issues of free trade and is an eye-opener. However, the portrait given is of an unstable situation that can't last forever, whatever new mutation lies down the road. Residents of the United States have been caught up in an ambiguous contradiction, the destruction of domestic industry, and the addictive temptations of Walmartization. As the wheel turns from this unstable new development in global capitalism to the next combination, some awareness of the disinformation created by 'economics' discussions in the United States is needed to correct the long-term destructive character of this confused, yet to some very profitable, constellation of capitalist trickeries.

The China Price does a really good job explaining what goes on in China's factories and, in particular, the whole system that has been built up in China for avoiding monitoring by Westerners. Ms. Harney's thesis is that in many cases, Western companies producing goods in China know the prices they are paying make fair employment and decent environmental standards impossible. I recommend the book to anyone interested in how China has managed to achieve the China price and what the societal and environmental costs of that price has been. I also recommend it to anyone thinking of doing any manufacturing in China, be it on your own or through outsourcing. This book will teach you what really goes on in China manufacturing.