Customer Reviews

Power Shift: China and Asia's New Dynamics

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An excellent book. The Bush and Garver articles in this anthology touch on Chinese railway infrastructural development. Assigned readings for my Troy University course for the MSIR.

The 16 essays in this book are combined into 6 different parts,with each of the different parts emphasizing a different aspect of the rise of China-impacts on Taiwan and Japan,regional power shifts,
economics,security,implications for the United States,etc. All of the essays in this book essentially assume that the economic statistics extant in 2006 were accurate estimates of Chinese economic growth.They then make projections about relative increases in Chinese political,military,and regional power dependent on these economic estimates.It is here that the essays are all mistaken.

The World Bank reestimated Chinese GDP(gross domestic product)figures in late 2007.Based on revised purchasing power parity adjustments, reflecting revised adjustments of relative Chinese prices vis-a vis American prices,it was realized that Chinese prices were being adjusted upward far too much.Revised figures show that China's GDP is not in the $10-$11 trillion range ,as compared to the USA's roughly $ 13 trillion gdp, but is no more than $6 trillion .

The result is that China's political,military,and regional power has been substantially overestimated.The readers of this book need to take this new information into account when evaluating the conclusions and projections made in these essays.Similar miscalculations were made about the old Soviet Union's economic growth rates in the period from 1928-1960.These also resulted in assessments of Soviet military and political power that were far too optimistic.