Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.

Buy Used
$7.65
FREE Shipping on orders over $25.
Used: Very Good | Details
Sold by 321-Books
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comment: Ships 24/7 Direct from Amazon normal wear No writing or highlighting. yellowed from age. The dust jacket shows normal wear. 100% Satisfaction when you order from 321 Books.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon
Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more
See this image

In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony Hardcover – March 4, 2008

4.3 out of 5 stars 29 customer reviews

See all 10 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions
Price
New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
Hardcover
"Please retry"
$9.50 $0.01

Best Books of the Month
Best Books of 2016
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for the best books of the year in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.
click to open popover

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Review

See all Editorial Reviews
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

New York Times best sellers
Browse the New York Times best sellers in popular categories like Fiction, Nonfiction, Picture Books and more. See more

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (March 4, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312362323
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312362324
  • Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #330,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

By Lev Raphael on October 28, 2009
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I think anyone concerned about the global balance of power and America's economy should read this fascinating, beautifully written, impeccably researched book. It clears up myths about global trade and makes it quite clear that unless an American government wises up, our economic power will continue to diminish, with grim consequences for prosperity at home. Just one example: you hear all the time that America doesn't build cars that the Japanese want and that's one reason our car industry has suffered a collapse. Nonsense. The Japanese have strict import controls and only allow 5% of the cars in their country to be foreign-made--which means European cars are in effect boycotted as well. I've never hward anyone argue that the Europeans don't make good cars.

I wish everyone in the White House and Congress would read this book and think through our trade policy--because it puts us at a great disadvantage on the world stage.
Comment 16 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Eamonn Fingleton has more than twenty years of experience on the ground in Asia and he has brought his wealth of knowledge about the region to his latest book, In the Jaws of the Dragon. Far from integrating smoothly into a democratic capitalist world order, China, Japan and other Asian countries are going their own way with their own economic and political model - with authoritarianism and bureaucratic control of the economy and the general population a centerpiece.

Apologists for globalization like Thomas Friedman write from 30,000 feet and conclude all is well in the new flat world, but on the ground Fingleton makes clear in this book that China is following in the footsteps of Japan (with the aid of the Japanese, in fact, directly for "reformer" Deng Xiaoping's rise to power) towards a new form of capitalism that is on a collision path with the west. American readers will be surprised and should be concerned about Fingleton's detailed discussion of the long standing and very close relationship between Japan and China. We are seeing the emergence on a world scale of a major competitor and possible rival for global leadership in East Asia.

Particularly interesting to me in In the Jaws of the Dragon is Fingleton's discussion of the state's suppression of consumption in order to accumulate capital wealth controlled by the government. China, for example, recently renewed its "one child per family" policy - an ultimate form of suppression of consumption. Similarly, the Chinese regime continues to outlaw the formation of genuine trade unions and the right to strike which leads to artificially low wages.

While some in policy circles argue that China's admission into the WTO heralds an era of openness to western investment, Fingleton argues that this is not the case.
Read more ›
Comment 34 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover
This is an excellent study of US-China relations, written by the author of the brilliant books In praise of hard industries and Unsustainable: how economic dogma is destroying American prosperity.

Fingleton says that China follows the East Asian model. This is mercantilist, protectionist, and generates high savings because of curbs on consumption. So its savings average 40% of GDP, which they largely invest in manufacturing.

Since 1979, China's export revenues have grown by a record 16% a year. In 2007 it exported more than the USA (in 1996, the USA had out-exported China by four to one, in 1956 by ten to one). China is now Japan's largest trading partner (in 1992, Japan did five times more business with the USA than with China). China's foreign currency reserves are the largest in history - $1.2 trillion in May 2007 and its current account surplus is a world-record 9.5% of its GDP.

By contrast, the US current account deficit in 2006 was a record 6.5% of GDP, the second largest by a major nation in peacetime (in 1924, Italy's was 7.7%). US imports exceed exports by two to one.

Fingleton sums up the comparison, "in the last four decades those advanced nations that have been most faithful to laissez-faire - the United States and Britain - have been notable for economic mediocrity, if not downright dysfunction. Their currencies have on balance fallen precipitately, their trade positions spun out of control, and they have lost the advanced manufacturing industries that provided a bedrock of well-paid secure jobs to support broad-based prosperity."

But the US capitalist class keeps on outsourcing, shutting US industry and moving jobs overseas. Its sole aim is to maximise profit, whatever the cost. As Fingleton notes, "the big gainers are ...
Read more ›
Comment 12 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
Format: Hardcover
The Washington establishment is betting that opening our markets to Chinese goods is the best way to promote democracy in Beijing. Countless multinational see profit in promoting this view. Unfortunately, ideology is again overruling common sense, just as it did in the decision to invade Iraq.

South Korea's 2006 per-capita income was $18,400 ($110 in 1962), less than half that of Japan. If the rapidly growing Chinese economy merely matched the per-capita income for South Korea, their economy would already be 2X that of the U.S.

Fingleton believes that China's high savings rate is a key to its rapid economic growth - encouraged by trade barriers, credit controls (consumer and mortgage credit is hardly available, including refinancing to fund consumption), land-zoning policies that greatly restrict the space for homes and retailing (creating a need for savings and high prices/rents that mostly flow back to the government - owner of most land, where it is used largely to fund industrial investment). A 17% VAT is still another means to suppress consumption.

Confucianism enjoins the populace to obedience, loyalty, and self-sacrifice; it was pushed by President Jiang Zemin in 1993 after he was impressed by how these virtues were stabilizing forces in Japan, South Korea, and especially Singapore. This stability is augmented by the government holding groups responsible for members' behavior.

Another key control mechanism is selective enforcement, in which most real power resides within unaccountable and invisible bureaucrats atop a maze of sometimes contradictory regulations that often are not enforced unless the "offender" has drawn attention through eg. political action.
Read more ›
Comment 13 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Most Recent Customer Reviews