What the West Gets Wrong About China
A conversation with economist Keyu Jin, author of The New China Playbook, on why cultural misunderstandings are making it harder to manage China’s rise and avoid future conflict.
Even in modern China, tradition matters.
Photographer: CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Adam Minter: You’re a Chinese-born, Harvard-educated professor at the London School of Economics. Your book, The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism argues that China’s economy is transforming in ways that western publics have failed to understand. The animating idea behind this book is that China gets lost in translation when presented to foreign audiences. Could you describe when you first realized that, and that you wanted to do a better translation?
Keyu Jin, author, The New China Playbook: It started when I first came to the US as an exchange student. People like me were so excited about what was going on in China: The changing face of the Chinese economy, our bidding for the 2008 Olympics, the vast amount of transformation. Hundreds of millions of people were moving out of the state sector into the private sector. It was the beginning of this vibrant economy.